Except that aspect was never in the Realm of Death, instead the Emerald Dream itself was a realm of rebirth and afterlive with G’hanir serving as the after live of all winged creatures, and where the Wild-Gods went to regain their mortal forms without any problems, instead Ardenweald suddenly introduced races, certain treshholds(Anima, anyone?) and what not to rebirth for every Wild-God all over the cosmos instead of being the blueprint of Azeroth.
Sure, I’d agree, were it not this particulair wildshape is a fat cat, instead of anything related to Night Elves? (same anoyyance applies to the 2 dogs randomly running around Bel’ameth, like who’s are they? why are they there? why do they run around the village?)
Except, its the only lore explaination of less Shadowlands involvement we got. Its a non-canonical meta-event when it doesn’t fit a certain view, but it is when it fits.
Its literally the only source which states the Shadowlands is basicly closed off and vice-versa, by the literal lorewise Gatekeepers. Otherwise we leave Shadowlands in a limbo and everyone and their grandmother(Ol’ Emma) can still randomly portal into Oribos?
On a side note: I have been doing the new Arathi Highlands quest, and I feel like Faerin Lothar has been dumbed down so much for… What? She blames Stromic people for everything her own people did aswell and then acts suprise its a fault of humanity to fall to internal fight, darkness, or whatever. Her people are one of the biggest racists in Warcraft, yet she acts like the Arathorian Empire would just enjoy taking in any refugee no matter their race, inspite of what their quests told us… Like what am I missing here?
Also there is the whole fact Eitrigg leaves out the whole reason as to why the Internment Camps were a thing, making Faerin belief they were innocents and Humanity were the aggresors instead, like wth??? Not at a single point in this questline were the Orcs actually called out for what they did to Humanity and Azeroth, yet Humanity was called out at every turn for what non-Alliance Humans did?
Two sides of the same coin, one for spring and summer, one for autumn and winter, very closely tied together and thematically-linked. Yes, the lore has changed and yes, Ardenweald technically belongs in the Shadowlands, but Ardenweald functions in effectively the same way as the Emerald Dream did before.
It’s only a huge issue if you get into the weeds of semantics and technicality and force yourself to acknowledge all of the faults of Shadowlands whenever something from that expansion appears. Again, I think that’s excessive and I think it’s better to just suspend disbelief and accept that some of these things fit into and can add to a story, but this argument’s starting to get circular.
Shame about the Sinstone Swingers though, hopefully they’re confined to a very out-of-the-way corner.
You’d have to ask a writer.
All we can do is accept what we have. We cannot change it.
Shadowlands exists. We can ignore nearly all of it IC and get on with our RP fine.
It’s the tauren male one that had me shocked. Not only does it have an occasional looking around animation, but the model has an animation where it briefly stands upright and scratches its chin before it settles back into a lean. A surprising amount of detail went into that one.
Troll male and pandaren male are odd choices, as they’re more about sitting down than leaning. Just alternative sitting poses, really.
Goblin female needs fixing, it has a looking around animation where some doodad sprouts out of its hand.
It’s also very hard to actually lean with some of them, as the pose puts a lot of distance between the wall that you’re pressed right up against, and the supposed contact area on the model. Zandalari female is the worst for this, I haven’t encounter a single wall that it can convincingly lean against.
Very possibly an Easter Egg or something instead of actual canon, because I couldn’t see these guys at all. Granted, I had done some quests in Tazavesh so maybe it’s something that comes after the campaign or before the quests I’m in.
Or even that the character that I played on hasn’t done Shadowlands (or finished the campaign maybe?)
Due to working so much with Narcissus I already knew quitw a few od these beforehand, including male tauren and pandaren which are also my favourite ones. Troll male is also cool.
Played a bit of the PTR and decided I’ll drop my takes here.
The Positive:
I like the new open world sets that turn you into an ethereal. I feel like it’ll be really big for ethereal rpers without needing to prism.
The feel of the outside zone being a cold, cosmic desert. It feels unique as far as zones go and is quite fitting for K’aresh. Definitely one of my favourite sand zones.
The Bio-Domes. They give much needed variety to the zone, the difference in feeling between being inside them and outside is really well done.
The main quest, (much to my surprise) I found myself liking Xala’tath joining our team and acting as basically her minion as she gaslights and manipulates us.
The Wastelander Ethereals. A group of ethereal bandits that once served as the priests of K’aresh. They give a unique vibe and have neat lore.
Void glass. It just looks pretty.
Lean emotes.
The Negative:
Broker favouritism. Most of the friendly settlements and named npc’s are brokers. And while I’m still not sure how I feel that they are now ethereals, I would prefer if the actual ethereal race and architecture had more time to shine, perhaps a Bio-Dome of their own since the Brokers hog them all.
Shadowlands references. It feels weird to cram that stuff here and the expansion gives me trauma.
Overall:
I think it’s a pretty neat patch so far. I’d prefer it without the Shadowlands references as it feels out of place in such a zone as K’aresh. The Brokers being here overall is something that I’m mixed on, but not hostile towards. I can accept them being a different flavour of ethereal.
Why would people complain about to many Goblin appearances in a Goblin patch? That would be like complaining about to many Draenei/Orc weapons during Warlods of Draenor?
Also so far its a nice mixture of Void, Fel and Ethereal, i suppose?
Mostly because a lot of people, especially on this server, do not vibe with goblin aesthetics whatsoever and a lot of them found the goblin patch to be repellent, that goblins should’ve just been featured in a .5 or .7 patch. I’ve never known quite as many people to respond to a patch with “this isn’t for me.”
So it’ll be interesting to see if the patch gets similar rhetoric thrown at it, or if people are more comfortable with cosmic space adventures than they were with goblins.
Goblin transmogs are hardly usable by most types that aren’t goblins or gnomes, that’s the reason it’s not that much appreciated. Meanwhile the ethereal gear can, to a degree, be of use for anyone into high enough magic. It’s simply more versatile and less locked into a specific type, so it will likely be seen around much more often.
I disagree with that. It’s worth keeping in mind that goblins are an extremely mercenary race, who will do business with anyone and sell their goods to anyone. Anyone who isn’t devoted to their racial aesthetic and who is into engineering, works for goblins, or considers it the best gear that they can get their hands on at the time could use the goblin weapons and armour from the Undermine.
While ethereals share that mercenary nature, I’m not certain if they’re as willing to part with their own technology. Additionally, they’re a lot rarer and then there’s the matter of maintaining ethereal gear, which would be a lot harder for anyone with magitech expertise, something a lot rarer than engineering expertise.
That’s why I think that it’s much easier to explain why a character is wielding a goblin buzz-saw axe, than why a character is wielding an ethereal energy sword.
What I mean is that ethereal gear is more generic, especially for the high-magic types. Anyone into arcane, void or shadowflame would be able to use or even create IC these raid armaments as a part of what they do, not suffering over the need to get spare parts somewhere, or otherwise go to greal lengths for mere maintenance.
Cheaper to reuse existing high quality assets from Slands than make whole new ones since the TBC stuff’s dated, at a guess?
I know they’ve got new assets as well, but if they’re reusing some stuff, easier to make the new stuff unified with the reused than making it unified with stuff from scratch.
