After beginning to heavily delve in to the lore

Community General Discussion
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I’ve always been a fan of the lore in-game, however these past few days I’ve been really getting in to it again and decided to give myself a refresh.

I’ve again watched every cinematic starting from Warcraft 1 through Warcraft 2 and most of Warcraft 3. This coupled with the video series by Nobbel87 on YouTube (starting from the birth of the universe / titans etc) I’ve now really come to appreciate even Shadowlands, from a lore perspective.

For those who appreciate the rich lore, how did you find SL to play a part in it (in your opinion)?

Personally, I think if I’d have had the knowledge that I do now when starting Shadowlands (disclaimer; I’d not played since Cata’ before coming back to SL), I’d have enjoyed SL tenfold.

A random example would be the Val’kyr / Spirit Healers / Odyn / Helya. How this all linked together stories/lore past and present, I found to be fantastic.

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I respect the lore until warcraft3… WoW lore telling is meh.

Dev also managed to screwed lore many times.

Making Illadan as villan in TBC was big mistake - solved in Legion after many years

WoLK only successful bcoz of Arthas not freaking gameplay.

Different timelines I couldn’t digest.

Sylvanas char just destroyed by writers.

They managee to kill more core chars than introducing new core chars throughput expansions.

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Most modern “creatives” can do little more than to use/reuse successful characters and stories of the past (in that case WC3) to draw people.

Tolkien’s work is next on the Sacrificial Altar of Desecration.

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It was interesting but trying to explain the entirety of existence is very difficult and left a lot of holes, chicken or egg things. It also was created after the fact rather than from the beginning. So, whilst it made the LK story etc more interesting… also didn’t quite work.

I learnt long ago, though, that if you stop nitpicking and just enjoy what is presented then you have a much better time.

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Sorry…
Rant ON

Retconning things is anything but “rich lore” and creates huge plot holes. While in theory is could have worked, for example the Nathrezim were agents of Daddy D, but just made a mess. They were awesome as a race that became Demons. Now it turned out, they are “Death beings” whatever that means
Seriously, what are they? Sapeshifter, posessor, demonic, respawning, hard to kill… whats? Till Shadowlands it was clear what they were. Portal Keeper Hasabel described Nathreza, their home world as “once a world of magic and knowledge, now a twisted landscape from which none escape”. So it worked nicely they were akin to the Eredar of Argus, just older, then became corrupted and Demons
Sure this sentece works with the curent lore, since the Nathrezim “colonized” Nathreza, so it is totally possible, it was indeed once a world of magic and knowledge, just the Unseen Guests arrived uninvited then wiped out the original inhabitants.
Works? Yes. Was necesarry? No.
This is just an example.
The whole Jailer and Runecraver, Helm of Domination and Frostmourne, Ner’zhul, the whole 4 D chess like plans within plans within plans is so complicated and insane, it shouldn’t even work to begin with!
It was just dumb luck the Legion found the Orcs, and the whole Lich King plot of the Jailer was a complicated mess
What was the plan actually?
Make a Herald, who would deliver a Wold Soul, preferably Azeroth the strongest one, but weaken enough to be used and use another one to broke the Arbiter to have souls in the Maw
Considering the SL connects ALL realites and time line, this is idiotic, not to mention, if the Natrezim, the Legion’s top dogs along side with the Eredar were his agent… then he had a whole pantheon of world souls and Sargeras (who collected them for personal use)
The whole Shadowlands was an unnecesarry chaotic retconfest
Not to mention, in an RPG - sure this is my two cents - there are three things you don’t want to explore, because of the potential problems:
Gods
Time Travel
Afterlife
Since we know, common folks showed up in oribos, the “great truth” is basically out, Afterlie exist… and your designated afterlife depends on your deeds and a decision previously a Construct now some fellow who had confidence issues and naive as a brick.
By all means Azeroth now should convert in to a planet wide Death Cult, since we know (and not just the heros, common folks) what realom awaits to whom? You are now able to cheat the system. Your life is what? Nothing compared to the eternity of Afterlife.
Not to mention knowledge always kills Faith
Sir Terry Pratchet wrote: “Most witches don’t believe in gods. They know that the gods exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don’t believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman.”
Just the tip of the iceberg if you asks me, SL is a damage to the Lore that is impossible to fix.
As a rolepayer a nightmare, trust me
Of course, this is just my oppinion, others might not agree

That is old news actually, not something Shadowlands brought in to the Lore, SL just made Helya one of the Jailors “pupets”. Before that, she had a personality, a story.
Helya was originally a gifted titan-forged sorceress who battled the forces of the Old Gods under the leadership of the keepers, the adpoted daughter of Odyn, who helped Highkeeper Ra crafting the Elemental Plane as a permanent prison for the Elemental Lords and their minions. Odyn not trusted the Dragons, and wanted his own personal army. Since no one was willing to make this sacrifice, Odyn decided he would need to create his servants by force. Helya objected, and the argument between her and Odyn grew so heated that she threatened to return the Halls of Valor to Ulduar. Seeing Helya’s disobedience as a threat to his plans, Odyn shattered her physical form, twisted her spirit into the first Val’kyr, and ordered her to begin ferrying vrykul souls from the Shadowlands as well as transform other unwilling vrykul into Val’kyr
Helya nursed resentment against Odyn for thousands of years, until the day Loken, a keeper who had been influenced by Yogg-Saron, reached out to her and promised to free her if she turned against her master. Helya used the same magic that had been used to lock the Elemental Plane to seal Odyn and his Valarjar army inside the Halls of Valor and then decided herself to become the caretaker of vrykul souls in her new realm Helheim.
What Shadowlands did? Added her story that Mueh’zala introduced Helya to Zovaal the Jailer and recruited her to his side…
Wow… what a great addition.
Totally against her tragic story and personality, but hey, the main theme of Shadowlands: the Jailer was behind eeeeeevrything and eeeeeveryone :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

Rant OFF

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It’s not really creatives at fault here, but the profit incentive. If you were a publisher tasked with making the greatest amount of money possible, would you

  • bet on a property with a pre-established audience and known marketing category
  • an entirely new story/IP/character you don’t know will have an impact

To most suits, the answer is obviouly #2

There is plenty of new ideas, characters, worlds and everything out there, but most of the time they don’t get the resources and attention they need to thrive, because endless sequels, knockoffs and reboots are a much safer investment, even after they start hitting diminishing returns.

What to do about it? I dunno, topple capitalism or something.

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If you bet on pre established audience you need to get it right or you demolish the interest in the IP

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If you’re planning on long term sustainability, that would be correct. But nobody has ever accused profit motive of incentivising sustainability. Quick cash ins for as long as sheer hype will sustain it, and then consuming another company with established IPs is much easier.

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I just wonder how they will fit Kel’Thuzad into DF as he seems to make an appearance no matter what is going on in the world across multiple expansions.
The boomerang character.

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This only works for videogames though.
Movie/series franchises cannot recover from that and they still do it.

A case example is how the interest to Game of thrones prequels and sequels has cratered thanks to how the last season unfolded.

Now Lord of The Rings is next on the chopping block because some dumdums decided it was a good idea to make a series about the appendix section of the trilogy books and invent whatever they wanted to fill the blanks, including adding “not-hobbits” in the Second Age as well as compressing the events that took centuries into what is a regular human lifetime. Lets not even go into the character assassination of two important elves.

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Wow lore is a joke. Rectonned to hell and one dimensional caricature characters.

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KT was secretly the leader of the death Dragonflight this whole time!

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I loved Arthas and Kel’Thuzad almost fater-surrogate son relationship/friendship
Seemd honest in WC3: Frozen Throne
As for his return?
He was a lich, we destroyed the phylactery that allowed his respawn…
Without it he not cased to exist, just when he died, he was dead… so Arbiter time!
But when he died the Arbiter was out of order…
Were should he gone to? Vegas?
Like everyone else, after his death, he went to the Maw probably
Or was there already , actually, we were in the Sanctum
He wasn’t an anima creaturem soul-stuff or “native”, what cases to exist upon destruction… he was flesh and… okay, bone and bone, his body was real. His soul probably quietly slipped away, while Bolvar used his powers (not him, his powers) to open a gate…
As a disembodied spirit, he probably found a way back (after all, he studied the realms, even breached the unescapable Maw), posessed somebody and crafted a new Phylactery to respawn
Liches…
This is my two cent in this matter

Dracoliches confirmed? Mmmmhmmm :thinking:

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For me, it’s quite the opposite. I quite enjoyed Shadowlands story whenever I managed to take it by itself, and it surely can be interesting when it comes to pure lore, but I didn’t like it as a WoW expansion mostly because I feel like it wasn’t written to build the world as narrative space for the players, and instead it aimed at displaying this linear, detached, cosmic story, and it even ended up being a bit wobbly and unconvincing in its exposition.
My personal issues with Shadowlands weren’t in the lore, nor in the nature of the events, but in the extremely unsatisfactory way they were told in, and most importantly the fact that it’s structured more like a tv series than an MMORPG story.
In fact, I’d go as far as saying that WoW doesn’t need a story stricto sensu. It needs a narrative space for the players to explore.

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This thread reminds me of this vid… The Shadowlands Story in a Nutshell. Enjoy!

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i dunno i hold high hopes for the prime series.

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Thanks to your long post I now somewhat understand the plot behind Shadowlands, so thank you for that.

When I did Zereth Mortis for the Legendary my thoughts were mostly “what the hell???

Like the Jailer and Anduin in Arthas armor entered a golden Death Star. I had to find some beacons before the Prophet of Truth activates Halo. Also the robots wanted me to kill animals for meat, I got an R2D2 companion , but it was like the one from new StarWars that is a ball instead of a garbage can on wheels. Then Anduin was back but now in Alliance attire instead of his Arthas gear. And we made a crown to avoid the Jailer mindcontroling us (Sylvanas says he does that…). Oh and then that annoying blue guy from Bastion sacrificed himself but not really so he could become the Emperor of Shadowlands.

And I was just thinking “what does this have to do with Warcraft?”…

At least I got my legendary for this.

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I would also like to have high hopes for it but when their promotion seems to be centered around how proudly they have deviated from the source in various ways, I cannot feel anything but dread.

At the best of interpretations, they are trying to take Tolkien works and make a Game of Thrones out of them.

I think Nixxiom says it best

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Going so far as to fire Tom Shippey from the project because they didn’t like it when he told them they were bastardising the source material.

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Hate what Shadowlands did to the lore. Really dislike the entire First Ones aesthetic and how the “Eternal Ones” are robots pretty much. Hate how Blizzard claimed they were stronger than Titans but failed to have them display anything even close to what Titans have done. Can’t stand all the teasing about Zovaal but not providing anything but flimsy teasers to justify his story.

Worst thing imo is how bad they messed up the entire concept of the afterlife for the Warcraft universe. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must feel like being my character right now, knowing that if I die, no matter what I believed in all my life, no matter my culture or even how I died the afterlife is going to be terrible.

Shadowlands also didn’t create any memorable new characters either imo and the one that did seem interesting (Margrave Krexus) was killed off after 5 minutes of being in Shadowlands. Although I feel a lot of stuff was cut from Maldraxxus and the Necrolords in general which did not help the expansion either.

I fully understand the afterlife is a very difficult concept to get right but they shouldn’t have tried if this was the best they could come up with. All in all, just based on the lore t his expansion has been the worst for me.

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