Pet peeves: The return (Part 2)

Nothing is worse than Shadowlands. Get outta here.
Stormblood is the weakest expansion though. It’s latter half is much better though.

2 Likes

Knight of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne almost killed SW:ToR tho’
I totally consider them worse then Shadowlands of WoW

1 Like

excuse me

3 Likes

Too bad it’s of the generation of DRM’s that poisons your computer with an EA rootkit.

The first one didn’t age quite well.

Okay, a WoW peeve for a change.

As Elenthas said in the 9.1 spoilers thread, the debut of both the First Ones and the Eternal Ones in Shadowlands is confusing.

It’s not enough that Shadowlands introduces a heap of new lore awkwardly grafted onto the familiar Warcraft setting, none of which was ever foreshadowed before and a lot of which involved heavy retcons overwriting existing characters’ motivations.

When you do a sweeping lore expansion like that, you generally don’t want the audience to feel confused or overwhelmed. Shadowlands lore, on the other hand, feels like there was no thought whatsoever given to minimizing player confusion.

It introduced two completely new groups of unfathomably ancient beings, named… the First Ones and the Eternal Ones. Both of which are Generic Fantasy Lingo for “unfathomably ancient beings”. Except they’re distinct groups and one created the other… or maybe just installed them into power? It’s not terribly clear. Either way it’s really easy to confuse the two.

It doesn’t help that the story is already filled to the brim with generic names: the Arbiter, the Winter Queen, the Primus, the Stonewright, the Accuser, the Countess, the Curator, the Archon, and the Jailer. (The latter two do have personal names but they’re rarely used, at least until 9.1, which makes me wonder if their names were decided late in development.)

I do that when worldbuilding, myself, when I decide on character roles and perhaps rough personalities before giving them personal names (or before even deciding what the phonetics of the predominant language of the area sound like). So my mental notes are filled with placeholder names like “the boy-king”, “the governess”, “the royal historian”, and so on. Which is part of what makes Shadowlands look to me like it was some kind of first draft of worldbuilding that was approved as the finished product due to time constraints, lack of imagination, or both.


Addendum: also the Sepulcher of the First Ones, a repository of knowledge not to be confused with the Sepulcher of Knowledge in Maldraxxus. Neither of them to be confused with the Forsaken crypt in Silverpine Forest known as the Sepulcher.

16 Likes

I’ve seen at least a few series where they lean into this completely - characters don’t have names at all, only titles/descriptors, and are referred to solely as such, instead of names. And it works, for the most part, though it’s a gimmick.

I do wonder if they’d turned it into a worldbuilding feature - Shadowlands natives (and those who give up their past lives entirely, such as venthyr and kyrian) take on only titles, while the (former) living retained their names - it might’ve felt better. It’s almost there for that, but doesn’t quite go far enough.

2 Likes

From what has come out in the ongoing California suit, more like an absolute lack of care from mid to upper management.

6 Likes

Fair, though these are not mutually exclusive.

To a large extent, it seems like trying to introduce new factors, a wider scope and many new characters but just rushing to the finish line with none of the needed elaboration and context for the next big thing.

Which is probably exactly what’s happening; new content is demanded and rushed with little care and a bare minimum of attention and the broad strokes on the drawing board remain so as the next patch launches. The quarterly report is appeased, the customers are not. But that doesn’t ultimately matter because in today’s crooked corporatist dominion you can do that and get away with it, coasting on brand loyalty and advertising while draining the company for the dump.

Bobby knows the Game. He plays the Game. WoW remains a flagship property while dropping in quality and customer base, employees are crushed and made to do more with less and fewer hands as the payrolls are trimmed and we merrily chug along to another record profit fiscal year.

2 Likes

Someone is DDoSing FFXIV again and people can’t start dungeons. Trying to start one as a complete party and it says “Reserving Server”.

Just… what is going on?

Someone high on Copium is trying to sabotage the award-winning free-to-play until 60 yada yada…

For legal purposes, this is a joke.

11 Likes

One of the other dogs went for She-Ra and she was really spooked by it (other dog is upstairs).

Hope she’ll feel like herself again tomorrow.

Also, you know when you go into general forums and see “the usual suspects” being misogynistic dillweeds and you just lose all faith in humanity?

Yeah, I did that to myself again and am peeved.

6 Likes

I tend to just stay in this thread. I’ve looked at the General Forums yesterday and ran back to this corner.
No more leaving the corner.

1 Like

I venture out because of the eternal TL3 grind (its funny that they put a grind on the forums)

2 Likes

I have managed to move my OW collectors from my floor (blasphemy I know, I know, it’s surprisingly in good condition all things considered) to the top of my shelves along with some other things and I can actually see my floor again??? I can bring in a vacuum cleaner and make cleaning so much easier than broom only

Never did I think I’d ne happy over cleaning my room

2 Likes

I vacuumed the car today.
Like, voluntarily. Because it was bugging me.

What is Adulting, and how do I go back? :frowning:

3 Likes

I am going to take a claw hammer and parody satire Minecraft the trope of ‘unfathomably powerful ancient empire who may have created us and has technology and/or magic beyond our understanding’

it’s overdone and dull

6 Likes