So... Shadowlands is the realm of the dead, but where are the dead?

Community General Discussion
1

Okay… I’ve been playing SL for the past 5-6 days. I leveled a character to 60, did the first part of the Covenant campaign, rolled some dungs.

I’ve yet to decide whether Shadowlands is my cup of tea, but it’s certainly a product of artistic creativity and love. Did I enjoy the zones? Yes, of course (okay - maybe excluding Maldraxxus). Did I like the storyline? Well… kinda. Yet after hours or playing Shadowlands, today I realized that this was advertised that this was the realm of the afterlife.

Thus said, where are the dead?

We were supposed to see people who have passed. And there are some. But in my opinion - quite few, and they kinda seem out of place even within the Shadowlands setting.

The only zone that really felt part of the undead realm, was unsurprisingly Maldraxxus. The reunion between Darion and Alexandros Mograine was sweet. Lady Vashj was an interesting addition, kinda… And then we have Baroness Draka, who doesn’t even mention her strangely absent husband Durotan.

On the other side, Shadowlands seems to me like a filler expansion that only serves the purpose to delay the moment we have to understand what’s going on with Sylvanas. Meanwhile the always excellent creative team has created new zones with great art (okay, the music was disappointing IMO), with great architecture (Bastion and Revendreth awed me), with intriguing never seen before characters like Zovaal and Sire Denathrus. And just like it happened to Mists of Pandaria that introduced some interesting new lore that never got mentioned again, the same will happen to Shadowlands. We’ll enjoy the story and forget it after that.

But you don’t need an afterlife theme for that. Shadowlands could stand as a separate Warcraft-related game or expansion even without such thing.

2

maldraxius did not feel like a n after live at all. It felt like a generic scourge experimentation site

2 Likes
3

I mean did you really expect every single dead person in the Warcraft universe to show up there? Or what do you actually mean with “dead”?

4

Agree.

I was actually telling myself the same thing : the expansion is great but it doesn’t really feel like the realm of the dead, especially Sylvarden.

It seems to me they started off with ideas relating to the realm of the dead but quickly lost their inspiration on that particular theme and realized the only way to make a good game was to give up the theme.

5

Maybe not all, but at least a lot of them, not about 5.

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Only place that felt kind of afterlifey was ardenweald due to being just the emerald dream…

The other zones just feel kind of disconnected… Might as well have sent us to another planet.

7

Have you already finished all the covenant campaigns? Played future patches?

There is alot of potential left that does not have to contained to the first 12 hours of playing.

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You are aware that all of the people you are seeing in Shadowlands and its related zones are actually dead people right? You didn’t actually expect them to stay the same in the afterlife or look the same right? Since you played the xpac you are also aware that most of the entities there are people but transformed because of death and covenants? Like seriously? There are souls everywhere. What were you expecting if not these?

9

And WoW went how many years where dead character retained their physique even in after life? Especially trolls.

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And for some strange reason Cairne, Krasus, Rhonin, Taretha, Blackmoore, Terenas etc etc etc are nowhere to be seen?

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But the characters wronged by the TBC writing team is brought back…

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Cairne - Has been completely forgotten since his son has pretty much taken over the exact same role.

Krasus - Not important enough in modern WoW Lore to show up

Rhonin - Would make sense, yes. Who knows, he might show up later. Right now I dont see a covenant where he would fit in tbh.

Taretha - Same as Krasus, too unimportant for modern WoW lore. Also no covenant where she would fit tbh.

Blackmoore - Same as Krasus.

Terenas - I could see him there, but wasnt his soul trapped in Frostmourne? Who know maybe that messed with his journey to the shadowlands.

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At least concerning Krasus and Rhonin, it looks like Blizzard has dumped Knaak and modern writers don’t care about Knaak’s lore.

First, they let Christie Golden kill these characters, the modern writers forgot they existed.

I wonder what that Roux genius thinks about Krasus and Rhonin and whether she’s heard about them :smiley:

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