So… this forum is pretty much dead, either because the Shadowlands don’t inspire much of any interest here… or because our sour demeanors towards it push away anyone who actually is interested. Hard to say, but the number and the nature of topics we had in the last months should be a bit concerning. Especially since we aren’t exactly lacking in speculation fodder. Just to bring up a few things:
The claim that the Sylvanas arc was pretty much decided by Afrasiabi alone, against the council of the story team. The rest of the story allegedly has mostly been cleanup for the stuff that Afrasiabi set up, and we acually haven’t seen what the Danuser story regime will be like, yet. If true there would be some implications for the story going forwards, which usually should make it a fitting topic of discussion here.
Leak season is here. There are probably a dozen or so “expansion leaks” out there right now, and while probably all of them are fake, the fake leaks are usually fun speculations that would be topics of interest here at any other time. Especially considering how many of them have overlapping content like some version of the Dragon Isles.
We’re getting more information about Zereth Mortis, and how it could be used to reshape reality. The Zereth’s are all connected, and through any of them ultimate power could be acessed, for example. There are implications in there that could be discussed, and concepts behind it that could be criticised. But no one here seems interested enough to bring it up.
Sylvanas’ story actually isn’t over, yet. But we seem to have lost the appetite for bickering about it, although we’ll still happily bicker about factions and elves. And we are doing that although the factions and elves have been irrelevant for more than 2 years now, while there are still Sylvanas hints coming out. We are actually working with her to free Anduin and find ways to resist domination magic. We’re also aware that she seems to accept the judgement of Tyrande for her crimes. I mean… yes, we had a topic here that touched on it, but that’s been dead for 3 weeks now. Not so long ago we’d have had 5 hot threads about it where we could call each other stupid in more or less fancy fashion.
…and so on. I don’t think it’s a great mystery why we aren’t talking about this stuff half as much as we used to. But I am kinda curious if bringing it up will get more of a reaction. So… consider it brought up.
For me, i dont like speculating/talking (except shttalking) about any sort of wow lore anymore because of 9.2
I mean, i have no problem with a character Story being written very poor (sylvanas). Just let her die or something, cant Change the past or give it any meaning… BUT flushing tue WHOLE Story and universe of wow down the toilet with just one Patch? No Matter how sl will end, the lore is dead and gone now.
With everything that has been awesome and mysterious in the past (Legion, void, …) beeing just a creation or calculation of the First ones, there is literaly nothing left to be exited about now.
Every character, even old Gods, lost their epicness now by just beeing a pawn of the jailer.
Also any scenario in which we defeat the jailer is completely unrealistic given the fact that he controlled everything from the beginning.
Just no - im out, lore is dead now. Congratulations
Or am i missing something ?
Well… not really, though, considering that the Jailer fails. A lot. The Lich Kings failed at what they were supposed to do. Sylvanas turned on him. His domination magic will be broken. And he will be defeated. And while it certainly feels stupid to write him in after the fact, it doesn’t actually change that much. In essence, he is just another player in the game that Old Gods and friends have been playing forever, he just thinks he is winning, until he isn’t. The prophecies of the void are quite clear in that his presence in the game actually hadn’t gone unnoticed by everyone.
And we always knew that the Dreadlords were manipulating things. Does it really change so much for the future that there was a boss to the dreadlords which had another boss that’s dead now? I think talk about the Jailer’s legacy will pretty much die with him.
Now, I’ll grant that the way they sell this is horrible. But no matter how much the devs say that he is a genius that manipulated everything, those statements don’t change the lore. And that includes him having a lot of setbacks, and losing his final battle.
Now this is one is more of a downer for me. But it’s also not clear to me how long-term the effects of that will be. It’s not like anything was actually explained. It’s just that the beings we know little about were created by beings we know nothing about. I would have preffered the creation myth to be more Fantasy and less Sci-Fi, but in the end it’s nothing but a creation myth. How much it might affect the story at all in the future is pretty much an open question, and you actually could ignore it entirely without getting into problems going forward.
For me personally it actually helped to see the First Ones as nothing more but the supreme beings of Order, who didn’t create the world, but were just trying to manage what’s already there. Not the makers of the Void Lords, but beings on their level. Essentially the same as the titans, just an unnecessary powerlevel above them, just like the Void Lords are to the Old Gods.
But I certainly get where you’re coming from. It just feels wrong on every level right now, and it’s draining much, if not all, motivation to emotionally invest in the game and its world.
It’s simple. None of that is interesting or exciting to discuss. The story is a sad joke at this point. Who cares what happens to Sylvanas at this point? Most people don’t care because they’re sick and tired of her, myself included. Zereth Mortis? Who cares? It’s about as disconnected from Warcraft and from Azeroth as Kingdom Hearts is. Afrasiabi being responsible for Sylvanas going evil? Just a cheap scapegoating and blame-shifting because the writing team realized that their story is bad. What more can one discuss about it?
The reason why this forum is dead is because the current story is dead. That’s all there is to it really.
People want to discuss Azeroth, the races, the world developments, but they can’t because all of that is in a vacuum right now. And the only book that could’ve given us some interesting stuff to discuss turned out to have kept at least one major part of the world in the Catacylsm era status quo.
Speculating is fun, but at this point I think most people just want something concrete to sink their teeth into. Hopefully the next expansion will be revealed soon.
The problem with Sylvanas arc is that they blame Afrasiabi 2, maybe 3 years after he stopped supervising the story. Seems like a blame game, Shadowlands story didn’t go so well but its not our fault its Afrasiabis fault.
I don’t agree with the actions of Alex, but it’s important to separate that from the finishing product.
And the finishing product is totally on Danuser. He has caused this trivialized afterlife and shocking story for Shadowlands. He created a villain in Zovaal who is beyond terrible. I mean, we all thought WoD Archimonde was bad, but Zovaal takes it to a new level.
The finishing product is Danuser and he has to be held to account for his failure of a story.
If he has any sense, he would step down, but he won’t do that. No - the next expansion, despite all of our hopes and dreams, will likely be more Sylvanas and Anduin because we seemingly have a bunch of idiots running the show who are going through a Tolkien-kink.
Even if we were to assume that the story of Shadowlands was pretty much set in stone by the time that Danuser could get anything rolling… The execution of the story is as bad, if not worse, than the basic idea. Stringing us along with forced and fake mysteries instead of giving us enough information to actually feel anything about what’s happening is not about the content, it’s about the execution. Just like failing to introduce us to the characters, or explaining the connection all this has to Azeroth is. And even if we were to assume that all the major cinematics couldn’t be changed at all anymore, they still had quests and trans-media stuff to work with, that could have given us the context we so desperately needed. Instead we got misleading interviews and wild speculation was needed to even have an idea about what the heck was going on. And yeah, that’s on the current story team, not an impulsive drunk that decided to burn Teldrassil or “Fire that cannon” on a whim without caring about the rest.
So even granting much, much more than could realistically be granted, and assuming a ridiculously inflexible development process, Team Danuser shouldn’t evade the blame here.
I believe Alex started the whole idea behind Tyrande vs Sylvanas - the whole burning of Teldrassil by Sylvanas - it wasn’t a question of if we were going to see Tyrande vs Sylvanas, it was a case of when… It’s possible, that might have been his vision. (A bit late if you ask me, since the whole “tyrande vs sylvanas” was so 2011 - 2012, but hey-ho.)
Danuser, with Golden’s influence, has shoe-horned Anduin into this and I believe, along with Zovaal, it just made the story so much worse.
Out of everything from PTR I find this disclosure the most interesting. Watching some of the Starcraft 2 cinematics/cutscenes again recently I wonder if they’re trying to setup the First Ones as a sort of precursor race like the Xel’naga. If so, then there’s high chance the 7th coveting what 6 hold fast could end up being a Amon type villain.
There’s a lot of similarities to the that game’s story with what is being told to us now in the lore.
“The xel’naga were the first, born within the Void. Their sacred purpose was to cultivate life and perpetuate the Infinite Cycle.” - Hierarch Artanis
“Hope. Betrayal. Sacrifice. Faces change. The tale does not.” - Everliving Statuette
…and like the Jailor, Amon also wanted to break the cycle. It makes you wonder if the Jailor himself was a red herring, or a puppet and distraction for something else at play.
Someone on wowhead already posted the idea that each cosmic force could be in someway represented by a First One, or be their legacy if it does turn out to be that they’re behind how the cosmology is currently defined.
Then again, a story similar to that would just be a re-hash of what happened to the Titan Pantheon. Although, it would fit that fractal theme of theirs where comparable events and outcomes repeat themselves in different scales. Maybe all these near world ending events are due to corruption of 7th all along and something in their grand geometry they never managed to solve but at least for a time postpone. Iterating ever closer to the solution but, not quite resolving the problem.
We are diving very heavily into the realm of speculation here. But, I can’t shake the feeling that they’re laying the foundations for some sort of multiverse arc, like WoD on steroids. Where the solution requires us to seek answers and aid from those in other parallel realities. Each reality an attempt to resolve the issue of the solution, the 7th.
My theory is this is all illusion pulled by Nzoth, and we are sleeping, dreaming our perfect reality in nyalotha. Nzoth is the most powerfull old god in my opinion his illusion was on the level of Aizen or Madara. They do not live they do not die , They are outside the cycle. Only a fool would refuse such gift! Or im just a crazy lunatic dweling deep in phylosophycal concepts that will one day drain all my sanity, you pick!
I can say it again, even in BFA there was some fire passion in story. In SL all go to ashe. If want better communication, can try US forums, they are for me better, than EU, have different organizations and “blues” are more close to people.
This means absolutely nothing.
“Oh no someone decided that a character that was already morally sketchy would have a heel turn”.
The story beats that Afrosalami wanted were not bad on themselves, it was their execution that was bad, and that was all Denuser and co.
“But Denuser inherited a bad story”
So what ? This stuff happens all the time in entertainment, his job is to make it work. Also people are acting as if BfA or more specifically the War Of Thorns is the worst thing to happen to the lore, its not. SL is, and we can point that one on Denuser.
“But thats not how expansions work…”
Course correct, 9.1 and 9.2 are all long after Afrosalami left, ditch the whole “Jailer is behind everything” plot and develop him, stop ruining the pre-established lore. Tone down the plot armor on Sylvanas, Tyrande running out of juice just before the killing blow was one of the cringiest, lazy and deus ex crap I have seen in a while. Stop explaining the magic, its a high fantasy world with some sci fi elements in but for some reason we need to find out that there are gods that are making other gods via 3D printhing, we already did that with the Titans and the keepers but now we have to find out who 3D printed the Titans…
We have already seen what Denuser is capable of, convoluted plots, flimsy payoffs and ham-fisted sci-fi. The copium is strong with anyone who thinks that Denuser will lead the story in a good direction. Everything that was good with the lore of WoW got retconed away with SL and we will not be getting anything better.
Fun fact about Steve, he is in love with S8 of GoT. “One of the best examples of writing” is what he said and constantly proclaims that the people who hated it didn’t understand it. So we are supposed to trust this guy on delivering a good narrative when when his “best example” is characters not making any sense, rushing to payoffs with no build up and completely undermining or erasing development and/or growth. Sure…
People have pointed out the similarities of GoT S8, Infinitywar/Endgame, Eternals (another movie he loves) and WoW. Who wants to bet that 10.0 will be a WoW retelling of Matrix 4? I for one can’t wait to see how he explains that magic is the actually glitches in cosmological OS and we are just to dumb to understand the greatness of his work.
But yeah sure let’s believe that all the bad writing and plot is all thanks to Afrosalami…Again so what? The guy that is next in line is 10x worse (as a writer, not as a person).
What is there to discuss here exactly ? Azeroth awakens and Dragon isles? Ok cool, what does Azeroth awakening mean… another talking head that will be shouting at you to do WQs and dailies because yet another world ending event could only be stopped by you helping turtles get to the water for A_____ Power.
Dragon isles. Another new continent that will never be explored again once the expansion is over. Probably the return of Chromatus, which would be cool but still.
What does reshaping reality mean exactly ? And again with Denuser at the helm I am willing to bet on nothing good or interesting.
Also as I have said earlier it’s the “god behind gods” trope, which is explaining the magic behind it all. I personally am here for fantasy not Star Trek.
I will pretend that this is the case and ask why? People were done with her in BfA, and bringing this back to Denuser, he could have wrapped up her story there, no need to make her front and center in SL as well.
Now for what I actually think will become of Sylvanas. She will get a stern talking to by Tyrande and the others but will eventually get a slap on the wrist because she helpbed us defeat the lord of cardboard and she will bugger off to search for Nathanos, because Denuser succeeded in writing a worse love story than Twilight. We have datamined dialogue to suggest this.
You are right, there isn’t any mystery to it. People no longer care, BfA was bad but SL just destroyed pretty much everything people loved about the warcraft story. Even when the going got rough in terms of plot or writing we could at least look back to all the great stuff that came before, the LK saga, WC3 etc. But the introduction of “the mastermind” that was pulling the strings all along absolutely destroyed that, every single villain that came before lost all agency due to them being all part of the “plan” or working for the Jailer. Also lets address how lazy and stupid it is that the Jailer essentially just tossed hundreds of thousands of domino pieces into the air and “planned” for them to land perfectly onto the ground so that they would form a replica of the Mona Lisa. Lets address how stupid and lazy it is that this all knowing immortal being is essentially just a freaking robot.
All this and the state of gameplay these past 2 (or maybe more) expansions led to cognitive dissonance in what looks like the over whelming majority of the fan base. Hell just take a look at the lore youtubers and compare the videos they were making now to those they were making in lets say Legion, most of them now are speculations on tin foil conspiracy theories on what X means where will it lead than reporting the actual story.
TLDR The copium tank has ran out and hopium is running on empty aswell. No one cares anymore and no one trusts Blizzard enough to even get invested again.
Hitting the nail on the forehead. Executing a bad story well is 100% better than ruining all the good stories that came before.
Regarding stuff we aren’t talking about yet, did you guys know that the pet you get from fully researching the Box of Many Things (Mord’al Eveningstar) is actually what’s left of Sicco Thermaplugg? Seems he was so irredeemably evil he went straight to the Maw.
When it comes to why we don’t discuss it more than we do I won’t repeat what has already been said, people above are right, I think many of us just don’t care about what the story currently puts the focus on. Bickering about Sylvanas was fun for a while because many players love(d) her and reactions were always quite extreme on both sides, but that’s gotten old. Bickering about factions is fun but we’re starting to run out of fuel, aka (new) content to make assumptions from. Even the new Exploring Azeroth book gives us close to nothing in terms of updates, its only purpose is to keep the map frozen in the Cata era. I’m a bit tired, though still curious and looking forward to what’s to come. I’m just hoping it’s coming soon now.
