Even if true like…is that an excuse to make the story bad? You could just make it good. And if other people are negative about the story, and they don’t care about the story then why do they care about the negativity? Oh is it making the game less popular if the story’s bad? I guess people do care about it after all. Weird.
3 Likes
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Shadowlands story. The lore is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of Warcraft Chronicle and Sylvanas x Nathanos fan fictions, most of the suggestions will go over a typical player’s head.
There’s also Zovaal’s nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation - his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of his character, to realize that they’re not just threatening - they say something deep about DEATH.
As a consequence people who dislike Shadowlands story and Danuser’s writing truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the deep meaning in some bosses’ existencial catchphrase “Enough!,” which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev’s Russian epic Fathers and Sons.
I’m smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Steve Danuser’s genius unfolds itself on their computer screens. What fools… how I pity them.
And yes by the way, I DO have a Sylvanas Windrunner tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It’s for the ladies’ eyes only- And even they have to demonstrate that they’re within 5 IQ points of my own beforehand.
- The average Shadowlands fan, probably
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Whatever dregs of hopium I had for 10.0 is now a bleak wasteland of real doomer hours. 
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“Nooo Golden doesnt influence the story she just writes books noooo don’t be mean to them they are not responsible for the state of the story!!”
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This seems more accurate.
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Ohboy, seems the rollercoaster hasn’t ended just yet!
isn’t there meant to be a 9.2.5 patch at some point?
Think so? Isn’t that when the crossfaction LFG is coming in?
No single .5 patch could ever hope to tie every loose ends and give a satisfying conclusion. We’ve seen what they can do at their (worst) best.
Danuser’s & Co are about as fascinating as watching an endless car wreck. The explosions and damage may differ but it’s still destructive.
We already know of two awful things. Sylvanas subjecting herself to the judgement of Tyrande and apparently still walking away free to look for her boy toy Nathanos. If this isn’t peak writing, idk what is.
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So now SL main story is over I’m wondering what people reckon about the Empire Of Dragons leak/rumour? Cause legit at this rate even if I’ve been wanting a focus on dragons since like WoD this is the first time I genuinely am debating even buying it before release.
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Doing the quest chain leading up into Bastion they even retconned Arthas his mount Invincible into a regular Attumens horse.
Maybe I should thank Danuser and the rest of the culprits behind this mess of a game
their terrible work might just be so bad it can break my 16+ year addiction.
guess i’ll see what the next expansion does.
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Such an expansion would be about an entirely new bunch of reclusive progenitor dragons, which proto-dragons, Galakrond and the Dragon Aspects are all barbaric offshoots of.
Over the course of the expansion, all of the dragons that previously existed except for Wrathion are killed, retired or made even more irrelevant than they previously were.
As Wrathion ascends and becomes a progenitor dragon, he will say something in a slow and meaningful fashion like:
“It is time… for the Dragonflights and their aspects… to fade and be forgotten…”
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It gets a solid “eh” from me.
In another world, visiting a lost isle connected to dragonkind to help Wrathion save all dragons from extinction would be an idea I have absolute hype for, especially since it would undo the frankly weird “and now dragons can’t have any more babies” plot idea from the end of Cata.
But after BfA and Slands…no thanks.
Do I think it’ll be what they do? Honestly, yes. I don’t think it’ll “save WoW”, no matter how much twitterheads mention the dragon isles in breathless anticipation.
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Unless it turns out to be a hidden gem like MoP? I doubt it’ll be worth investing time in to it, generally speaking most of the original devs, writers and talent at that company is just for the lack of a better word gone. Legion was WoW’s last hurrah and BFA tried to recapture that feel but failed, Shadowlands is going to be the standard from now on I think unfortunately.
It is as if people think the setting for the expansion is the problem. Like if we suddenly went to Dragon Isles things would immediately be better. Nevermind the fact that the problem is in who writes, not where we go. I’m sure Shadowlands could be poggers too, had it been written with at least 1% of care for the past and present + the implications and effects on the universe.
Also Dragon Isles, a place that, afaik, has no real lore btw and is only popular because of that one concept art and the mystery of it, is, much like shadowlands, pretty much a blank slate for *anuser to write whatever he wants, dipping his grubby mits into past lore whenever he wants to make something “cool” via retconning it. If you saw what SL turned out to be like, why would you be any more hopeful for this?
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And that one concept art’s design was already used in the temple of the storms or whatever in Kul Tiras - big kraken temple.
So it’s literally just a name at this point. We know nothing else.
Revisiting some ‘old’ Danuser interview questions (2020):
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNW5Ks9XwAQ1P_J?format=jpg&name=900x900
“We hope to do right by Arthas.”: Turned him into an anima ball, do nothing else with him, kill him off for good.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNW5LMTUUAI2h99?format=jpg&name=900x900
“Bolvar is key to Shadowlands”: Nope, he did basically nothing this entire expac.
“Bolvar’s past will be explored”: Nope, they got barely ten lines between them.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNW5LVjX0AAAwBy?format=jpg&name=900x900
“The Forsaken will be part of the story”: They have literally had zero involvement in anything in Shadowlands. The undead race. Had no involvement. In the death expansion.
Now as I said this was in 2020, April 2020 specifically, 7 months before Shadowlands was released. You’d hope they’d have the story kinda locked down by then, even if all the dialogue and stuff hadn’t been written they’d know what they’re doing.
So uh, where were the Forsaken? Was that a lie? Did you lie to me Steve?
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Banish the thought that he, big brain and very talented blizzard writer Steve, the famous and beloved story teller that brought us the unforgettable shadowlands expansion, would ever lie.
the idea alone borders on the heretical.
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Since Danuser liked GoT S8, it’s only fitting to say he kinda forgot about all of that.
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Given everything that happened to Sylvanas over the course of the expansion, I wonder how awkward it is to be a Banshee Queen’s loyalist when she comes back all like “ahaha sorry guys we’re not fighting anymore turns out I served but didn’t serve but actually served a bad guy but now my soul is full and I got 35 Anima from Arthas so lay down your arms 
”