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Shadowlands was arguably the most horribly received World of Warcraft storyline in an expansion so far. Despite a large amount of creativity in zone diversity, characters, events, cinematics, etc the story of Shadowlands fell flat with the World of Warcraft community, leading to massive community backlash against Blizzard Entertainment. Sylvanas Windrunner, who was meant to be the center-star of the expansion, driving the interest in the story forward, was unable to connect with the audience. And the Jailer, Blizzard’s newest villain for World of Warcraft, was unoriginal, boring, and his plans to this day are still mostly unknown.
It was an expansion shrouded in mystery, confusion, poor storytelling, and drama behind the scenes – a recipe for disaster for the World of Warcraft team. However, there is some hope in that Dragonflight, at least from what we’ve seen so far, looks very promising from a story perspective. And that’s something that Nixxiom will talk further on in a future video.
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0:00 The Worst Expansion Story
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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
Amen 🙏
the hype for Shadowlands was kinda insane for the first few months. I thought it would be a good one, especially after the Uther video.
No one just enjoys sht for what it is. If you can do better publish it people will be more than happy to play your game I promise. Constructive criticism is one thing but people just bch and moan over the smallest things lol.
What they did to my boy arthas and letting her evil ass get a reprieve is what was wrong with it. Arthas was utterly destroyed, and she gets to run around looking for her undead boy toy. FK her and the writers they deserve the L on this one. Plus, like George Lucas trying to explain the mystical force, we didn't need to learn that the Wow afterlife was made by fucking robots.
imagine having to buy a 40$ dlc book, to merely connect all the dots, pieces, and learn mega empowered sylvannas and robot bodybuilder's motivations…. oh! wait!
we've already known all this and one of the devs (wont speak his name) prepared her to be the "strong female character" WELL before your culture war clickbait, bruh, this is so confusing
afrosanobi jerk'd off to sylvanas while bliz cut a patch
If they explicitly hard retconned Shadowlands with no explanation and just jumped out of the tail end of BfA (or Legion preferably but that might be too much to argue), I don't think most people would complain.
It feels like wow story team can only focus on like 2 characters at once and everything and everyone else stays still. Its not World of Warcraft + the expansion anymore, its just the expansion if u get what i mean.
Bastion was closer to Elysium not Purgatory. I mean it was called The Elysian Fields. You've seen Gladiator right? It was in Gladiator.
I still play shadowlands and not wrath of the lich king because i played wrath of the lich king when it came out before i don't wanna do something i already did before.
The Jailer earned none of the retcons. Everyone knows Sylvanas is going to come back for another round of villain batting. What a train wreck SL was.
Zoval could have worked if he was the bad guy 2 to 3 expansion after battle for azeroth. Just leave small bread crumbs in each expansion, or stuff that make no sense until you see that big picture.
Ff14 team did it with the morse code in a realm reborn crystal tower story. A code that said something we could not understand back then.
Not only did shadowlands lore basically downplay everything that happened before by having one random villain with no foreshadowing appear and be the mastermind behind every event and villain. They also retconned previous lore just to somehow make it make sense. Just a total disrespect to the WoW lore that came before it for a trash convoluted fanfiction story as a reward.
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.
I don’t play for the lore. But the zones of Shadowlands were in general, pretty depressing. Bastion was controlled by a cult. There were three zones in hell. Ardenweald was blue. Maldraxxus was an open sewer. My favorite zone was Zereth Morris.
– Should have never gone to the Shadowlands. It used to be this shadow version of our reality that held so much terror and mystery. Now? lul
– Totally depressing zones because Blizzard thinks eternity should be spent on tiny floating islands doing the-same-thing-forever; like fighting giant bugs galore and killing wildlife and if you die there, you die for real. Just like Pooping your pants in your dreams means you poop in your pants for real (Peter Griffin)
– Obvious more obsession on making even more 'strong female' characters to keep their ESG Rating up to make Vanguard and the global bankers happy (because they all created the woke movement in reaction to citizens coming together after the crash of 2009- the 99.9% who lost so much while the .01% got richer; they needed to pit us against each other so they worked with billion dollar PR firms and politicians to literally change the definition of privilege from being born with a silver spoon to being based on race and gender.) They got rid of Arthas all tidy like while Sylvanas got a redemption arc. Next expansion we will see Malfurion give his life to bring back Ysera just as they get rid of Khadgar
– They made Elune into barely a Titan level instead of being the daughter of the one true 'God' who sacrificed herself for her people and even gave the Dwarves eternal souls
– Zovall (sic? WHO THE F CARES?) sucked. Just another crappy written male with 'toxic masculinity' to… you guessed it… appease the investors via ESG rating.
I truly hope that the timeline gets reset to just after Wrath and I hope we find out the Shadowlands we saw were a nightmare from N'zoth. Won't happen because Blizzard was taken over by generic investor pleasing drones who use PR firms to present themselves as virtuous.
And the Best part is in the end of shadowlands when they finally reveal that jailer and all "creatures" are robots 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 OH….. And dont forget they dostroed lich king crown and replaced it with burger king crown…. On that day….. I throw shadowlands expansion out of the window….. The pain….. The pain…. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Revendreth specifically was fun, awesome vibes, cool concepts, Sire Denathrius was well designed and epically voiced. If all the shadowlands has revolved around him and left out the Lich King stuff, SL would have gone over so much better.
A really strong female character that they did make more badass is Tyrande. She was always strong and powerful and was made even more so in BfA and Shadowlands, but in the end of Shadowlands they kinda just said "lol nvm, she doesn't want revenge anymore because Elune said so I guess"
I did like the ending they gave Sylvannas though, also because it involved Tyrande maybe
I don’t really care about classic sorry
I've said it a few times and I feel like I'm really beating the point into the ground, but Shadowlands is the first expansion in WoW's entire history that was so bad that Blizzard gave it away for free. I didn't buy Shadowlands. I claimed it for free. Still haven't played it, and likely won't. It is truly the lowest low the game and the company has ever had.
the problem with Sylvannas is that Blizzard turned a complex character, into a one-dimensional character, people spotted that problem easily.
Yo that slyvanas book was 🔥🔥🔥
The worst part is shadowlands on paper sounds awesome story wise ….but then lmao we got shadowlands
LK being a pawn was kinda nice but poorly executed.
Complaining about a big ass celestial secret imprisioned guy orchestrated this stuff is…dumb.
We, little ones imprisioned in our little planet, wouldnt ever hear about him of course.
Sire Denathrious was great that’s about it ❤
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.
most of the people i know hated shadowlands, mainly because of how it all was about sylvanas and everything was going after her master plan, i have hated her since legion and this expansion made me hate her even more.
I really wanted the end cinematic was that the players wake up from a nightmare fighting an old god trying to distract us into a Infinite Tsukiyoami still thing
My girlfriend and I both stopped playing during BFA because of several reasons, firstly Sylvanas was my girlfriend's favorite character, and we both liked the idea of giving her a new arch, but instead of doing that they had her become the next Garosh and we ended up Re-treading the same territory, where the horde were the bad guys again. And those that liked Sylvanas were now relegated to fighting against her, while those who didn't like her in the horde didn't have any cool leaders left.
Thrall is overused, and with Vul'jinn gone, all that's left is their B team. So the horde has no convincing reason to be there anymore. And the alliance is just the good guys again. So the story sucked for horde players, and for the alliance it was just re-treading old ground again. Not to mention all of the political censorship by blizzard over Hong Kong, and the constant additions of new microtransactions in a game we already pay $15 a month for, as well as purchase the full price expansions. I have yet to pick the game back up since, and mostly see what's happening now from your videos.
not playing wotlk because that would be supporting recycled content, no thanks! you are literally telling blizz you are OK with them serving you garbage, ever since they released classic retail has gone down hill!
The only god Tier character in SL was Sire Denathrius! Rest was bs
I hope to GOD they retcon the bullshit that is Shadowlands. The entire expansion is just complete dogshit, a stain upon Warcraft and it's legacy. Shit story, shit characters, shit zones, everything is just shit.
Warcraft use to be so cool because it was almost like a fantasy medieval Warhammer. Now it just seems like a Tumblr fanfic that won't die.
Sals recent book about her life made me adjust my view of her. Blizzard can’t leave her in shadowlands ….. at some point they have to bring her back. They killed off to many of the horde and alliance main characters to fast. That part was stupid AF.
The leveling thorugh the zones was alright, and I think a guy that comes out of nowhere can be a great villain (just look at Denatrhius), the true problem is that the jailer fucking sucks and sylvanas by extension, if the jailer was not so obviusly evil and sylvanas didn't seem to enjoy fucking being straigh evil this could have worked.
Let's see so se start the expansión with the cinematic where sylvanas beats Bolvar and my complain with this is… why? aren't the using basically the same power? like they are both using the Jailer's power, how come that sylvanas is stronger? specially considering that Bolvar was the helmet, should that be a stronger link? also you have all your fucking army of undeads. Also, talking about the undeads, what happens to the scourge? are they fucking destroying all azertoh while we are on the shadowlands? Is that anytime going to come out again or is just some big event for a prepatch event like Sargera's sword?
But ok, whatever, we are told before entering the shadowlands about the Jailer and the maw, how is and horrible place and the Jailer is very powerfull and fearfull, ok. Minutes after that we see that he was not even able to take Jaina nor Tyrande, ok. Then we are told over and over that noone scapes the maw just to leave in from of the fucking Jailer who is there just looking at us until he decides to actually do something and take Anduin prisioner.
During the campaing we get to know that he needs the four seals and that he is allied with Denatrhius, so he already has ones (also all the anima sinking into the maw, that gets no use, it could aswell not happen since nothing changes for the jailer or the maw). So the thing is, we trying to stop him for taking the seals could be very cool, but let's review his plan to take the seals.
He uses Anduin to reach the Archon, this could have worked since It makes sense that Anduin would want an audience with the eternals to coordinate a plan, but… he literally appears out of nowhere (very suspicius since we know he was trapped in the maw), then he proceeds to stab the Archon to get the seals and then Anduin just dissapeara just as he appeared, out of nowhere. Cool idea, awfull execution. Welp, let's see the other two
Ardenweld, basically gets attacked by his lackeys and they win without much effort…, cool, so why didn't he did that for all covenants?
But then we got to the last one, he has the Primus chained on torgasth but he doesn't has the sigil, he hide it. I don't remember this part very well but I think the Jailer somehow knew it was un korthia? how? I don't remember. Then he basically follows us to take the seal for free. I don't even know why we went to find it for him, we already know we cannot defend the seal even in own territory (also what an horrible place to hide it, so near of the maw (or is it actually far and he can just move any of the covenants whith fucking massive chains?))
The point is he get's all the sigils and then (in the moment he is the strongest ever) we decide to finally go to his fortress to kill him, but we just don't even find him, we are basically doing nothing there… During our assault he pulls the maw to oribos (no idea how you do that, but ok) and he is sucking a ball out of the arbiter, something we don't know what is and we didn't know he wanted or needed. He proceeds to become even stronger with a way better desing (gotta admit that) and says some stupid superevil línea as always such as: "ah, soon everyone will serve me" and Sylvanas FUCKING FINALLY notices he is actually bad and is just a megalomaniac and cares about noone and shoots a fucking arrow at him. An arrow…, yeah sure, why not?, obviusly it does nothing to him and even though he could have killed us all there and then, he just leaves and gives sylvanas his good side back, great, if you wanted to lose you made them best choice possible. This is the worst scene, Sylvanas randomly deciding to stop being stupid right when we had already accepted it, then deciding that inestad of helping us from the inside (which she would totally do, is way more in his character) leaving clues or oppening for us to stop the Jailer, she just decides to shot an arrow, to the being that gave you all your powers, the being that was unstopable at the start of the expansion and is now at his peak and the being that should kill all his opposition right now and when you are sorounded by a fucking army of heroes that hate you; just lovely. But the Jailer us just stupid and just let us there AND gives sylvanas the thing that would make she work with us to stop him, and just leaves without killing any of us. I am not a genius but up to this point I think the Jailer has little concern for killing people on his way to get to his obejtive, why leave us alive now? Beacause he is later revealed to not be evil? cuade even so he should definitly kill us there.
Then he proceeds to do some more evil stuff all over Zereth Mortis and force his way through the place trying to… remake reality? What does that even mean? Why does that process needs Azeroth's soul? Everything is just a nosense.
But specially the end where he is after all supposed to be actually good and was just trying to unify all forces agaisnt something we don't even know? And he NEVER TELLS ANYBODY?! WTF????
The Jailer is such a awfull villain, 0 personality or charisma, very little sense and always telling not showing, probably the worst one I have ever seen and it ruined the entirity of shadowlands story
I also feel like, and maybe I'm wrong, that Blizzard's presentation has gotten worse over the years. I remember them being able to make a technically 'bad' story seem really badass in the past. I remember numerous expansions that were still criticized for their writing, but Blizzard was still able to make people really hyped for the expansion/new patch.
I feel like this started to wane with BfA. I remember being interested in the story at first (although Sylvanas was a problem character here too unfortunately), in particular because of Zandalar and Kul Tiras. Blizzard was finally unveiling locations in WoW that players had known about for years, which is always going to be innately cool. But I feel like everything after the launch of the expansion was far less interesting. Hell, I didn't even find the start of BfA very interesting either – it and Shadowlands (especially Shadowlands) are the only expansions where I don't feel very hyped when watching the cinematic trailer, unlike everything else prior.
TL;DR, I think Blizzard's presentation has gotten a lot weaker over the years.
lets think about this if zereth mortis woud be the starting zone after the maw ?
feminism killed sylvanas
Not only did this expansion's excuse for a story kill the entire fucking timeline for me, it proved that they were now incapable of writing Azeroth's true story. What hacks do when they get their hands on an IP is they: #1, try to rewrite everything to create their own thing to overwrite the true talent that preceded them and which they ultimately envy and hate at the same time; #2 Create shitty clones of stories they previously liked.
For me, Blizzard has shown that they are incapable of writing good WoW story and have no intention of changing what is needed to get it back on track. I wish I could say dragonflight gives me hope but all I see in the story threads I've seen is a superficial wrath of the lich king skin on the same soulless hollow writing I saw that constructed the very framework of their shadowlands writing. Wrath was incredible and the pull to a land I felt at home in is is strong, but I'm not dumb enough to fall for their fakery again.
Admittedly, I should have seen it coming through their baffling idea to destroy heroes of the storm and instead focus on dumb phone games that no one wanted but I still wanted to see the Blizzard I had remembered rather than the one it became.
Shadowlands was sooooo boring. I also fundamentally disagreed with the morals of many of the stories. For instance, in Bastion, they called upon acolytes to forget their past lives so they could impartially ferry the dead souls, but this not only felt like an assault on the unique personalities of the acolytes (reducing them to soulless automatons) but it was also unnecessary. Kyrians were not the judges of the dead, the Arbiter was, and secondly, was it not the experiences and personalities of the Kyrians (in their past lives) that molded their moral characters? And if their past was to be erased anyway, what was the point of choosing only certain worthy souls to become Kyrian. For that matter, an Arthas, scrubbed of memory and identity, would be no different than the most honored Kyrian paragon.
Needless to say, I instantly was on the side of the Forsworn and if this was a better game, my characters would have had the opportunity to aid the Forsworn in their fight against the Kyrian.
Shadowlands was also a huge missed opportunity. We only had the chance to catch up with a small number of fallen Azeroth heroes. Those rare times we did, it was the highlight of the expansion, which, for the most part was wasted on what amounted to pointless political intrigue between afterlife leaders.
I look forward to WoW going back to Azeroth. Even the not-so-great Azeroth expansion were at least grounded in the main story and were interesting.
BFA was better.
Just fire Steve Danuser already. His writing is almost as bad as the obnoxious systems and borrowed power crap. And SL needs to be just retconned.
I say as a wow fan we all should get a vote to delete shadowlands from the game, make it happen blizzard.
Because after it was clear people weren't liking the Sylvanus show they just leaned into it 100x more.
Yes old expansion bad, new expansion all good! Never heard that before. Ever.
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?".
I think that Sylvanas story was ok if you look at it in a different way, like she did not what to brainwash Anduin, the Battle of Azeroth started because Greymana stop Sylvanas plan to get Eyir so she can go to the shadowlands and she knows that no one is going to listen to her so that why she do what she did. We know why Zovaal did what he did but we do not know about the darkness he see coming.