The Shadowlands story is build on mysteries. And the idea seems to be that trying to solve them is a big part of what keeps us engaged with the story. The nature of the Arbiter and the Jailer, whatever made the Arbiter fail, the intentions of the Jailer and the mechanics of the Maw, the reason for the abduction of Anduin, the original use of the sigils, the idea behind all this “purpose”-stuff, the First Ones… These aren’t just pieces of world-building that would be nice to have. These are bits of vital information that we need to understand what the story we are in actually is. Without them, we only have the most superficial grasp of the motivations of the characters that actually drive the plot.
But they do fail to engage me, and I’m not alone with that. Why, though? Shouldn’t second-guessing everyone’s intentions be kind of fun? I can think of quite a few reasons why it doesn’t:
I don’t have enough information to meaningfully make guesses.
The actors in this are new to us. We don’t know what’s usual or unusual for them. We know little about their history and only the most superficial stuff about their character. It’s hard to spot inconsistencies if you lack an adequate baseline.
I just don’t trust the authors.
Legion and BfA set up quite a few mysteries as well. Most of them had very, very disappointing conclusions. Remember how they build up N’zoth over years? Yeah, so that one was a dud. Remember how they teased the moral complexity of Sylvanas? Yeah, no, if that’s morally complex, everything is. I could go on, but the examples aren’t really the point. The point is, that I lost my trust in the writers to deliver on their mysteries. And that greatly diminishes my ability to be engaged by them.
Many of these mysteries are 100% artificial.
The Eternals at least know the answers to most of our questions. They have known all the time who Zovaal was, and why he is doing what he is doing. They know why he was banished. They know how the Arbiter works. They know about the First Ones. They know about the mechanics of the Maw. And we supposedly spent quite some time in their realms. Heck, the game even teases us with the information that some of that stuff isn’t exactly a secret ( “Balmedar says: “Binding of the Banished One”? Why, this is little more than a history book.”). But we just don’t get an explanation. It’s even worse with anything relating to Azeroth. Considering we are sent there during the campaigns to fetch stuff, "there is no way to get information from there isn’t a viable explanation. It’s just that we don’t get any. That’s not mystifying, that is just frustrating.
And no, I’m not saying that need to have all the answers, and that there can’t be mysteries and twists. And it can be fun to find things out. But finally asking the obvious question after months is not exactly compelling detective work. If the Eternals fed us some lies that we slowly uncover in favour of the embarassing truth, that could be fun. But we aren’t even getting a cleaned-up version of events to question, we just don’t ask. It’s just like with the “No More Lies cinematic.” Sylvanas offers Anduin all the answers… and he just doesn’t ask any of the questions that most people are wondering about.
The pacing sucks.
“Get the mystery now, solve it in a year at the earliest.”. Sorry, by that time I would have lost all sense of mystery, even if I had some. For example, I was interested in Sylvanas’ motives at some point. But by now I just don’t care. Quality might take some time, but laziness and lack of direction take way more.
Ok, that was just a bit of a rant as a conversation starter, and was in no way complete or well thought-out.
Have fun.
That’s probably the biggest issue for me. There is also a risk that sensing fading intrest, Blizzard might decide to cut short the mystery so that they can move to something new. Like with WoD.
I think that’s what happened to Games of Thrones series. After all those memes about how “winter is taking forever to come” and people not caring about it anymore, they rushed the ending. Finishing all plots in just few episodes.
Yes, that’s something a lot of movies and games does. Reminds me of original Mass Effect 3 ending. People were furious that out of nowhere you get this kid-AI telling you few tidbits of totally new lore and you couldnt even ask him “hey, what’s going on?”. But that’s because unlike books, movies and games usually focus on action and characters feelings rather than background exposition. Though I’d love if they added more option to ask NPCs about different topics. Just like you can ask them to learn more about them and their story.
This is where it stands out most for me. And is perhaps the most glaring issue as to why most characters in SL aren’t really well liked or at the most simply just ‘tolerated’.
If they only expanded on why our task is as it is, why the Jailer is a threat beyond Bolvar and a few NPC’s saying “because he is” and why the covenants need to be the way they are, it would solve so many discomforts all in one.
Often in a plot, I am asking - or if its something I make up, I am the one getting asked - what the point of it all was, and why should someone invest in the subjects or characters in the first place. It’s not like Blizzard has proven incapable of providing this depth to subject or character either, as we have seen in totally-evil-world-destructive individuals such as Gul’dan and Sargeras.
Heck, they even go to LENGTHS in exploring this, such as Gul’dan’s understand disgust for his clan and easy transition and coersion to the Burning Legion. Why can’t we have something like this for Zovaal? or the Eternal Ones?
It feels like there’s no reason beyond “Just Do It” to hate or like these individuals. At least, in a personal sense. Which is why I was VERY intrigued on the lore behind these strange Giants that Zovaal apparently was heavily involved in according to the hand mounts, wishing there was just more of it.
And also this, at a very close second.
I’m sorry, but being told that the characters and players involved have super complex concepts because “We don’t know and perhaps will never know” is a poor excuse in promoting their imagery. If this was the case, then I am going to straight up express that discontinued NPC’s are some of the most complex minds to exist in any universe.
Books, films and games all have unique affordances when it comes to storytelling, but games have had a tendency to mimic films. Like Wimbert said, vanilla World of Warcraft did not tell its story through “action” or “character feelings”. It was primarily told through its environment and what little you could glean from talking to quest givers.
Digital games as a storytelling medium is still something that is relatively new ground. The MMORPG-genre is very young as well. Consider how much movies developed and changed throughout the first twenty-thirty years of the film industry. Suffice to say, the standards for films we have today did not exist back then and there was a lot of experimentation with the format. I think we’re undergoing the same thing with games, and I feel like the MMORPG-genre has regressed in how it tell its stories. World of Warcraft has become more filmic rather than game-y. It seems almost avantgarde at this point to consider a game story where there is no protagonist – where the story is created by the participants who share the same game world. The Gates of Ahn’qiraj was perhaps the most interesting thing World of Warcraft ever did in terms of narrative.
Wrapping this back on topic, I feel like Mass Effect 3 is an apt comparison as to why the “mysteries fail to mystify”. The highlight of the Mass Effect series, in my opinion, is when you first encounter Sovereign in Mass Effect 1. The reapers were interesting because they were mysterious. At the end of Mass Effect 3 we learn the purpose of the reapers. The writers attempted to give a logical explanation to something that was pitched as being “beyond human understanding”. It took only a couple of seconds of dialogue to ruin the mystery that made the reapers interesting in the first place. I feel that this is largely the issue with Shadowlands as well. Death was a mystery in World of Warcraft. Shadowlands attempts to explain it and categorize it. And in doing so it harms earlier narrative developments, and it harms one of the mysteries that had made the world building interesting.
The machinery of death broke? We still dont know how it broke in the first place. And not once we made efforts to investigate the cause
The cycle of life and death is unfair and needs to be remade? Why? What exactly is unjust about it? As we are shown, 99,9% of people are fine with the afterlife chosen for them. Even Mograine and Vashj, who originally struggled with the choice, came to the realization that the Arbiters choice was right after all.
What was this giant injustice that made Devos join TortureGuy McEvil and his Legion of Enslavement? One look at the Maw is enough to go “Yeah, that´s way worse then the Path in Bastion.”
Why did the Jailer rebel? What was flawed with the Cosmos? What secret knowledge did he seek?
What does remaking/ ending reality even mean? Does everything get destroyed and we are back at the big bang? Is it like Thanos and just some people get turned into magical dust?
How could Sylvanas look at the Jailer and think that joining forces with him was a good call? Its so blatantly obvious he has no good intentions, it makes her choice look stupid.
Those are some of the main issues i have with the story. Now, mind you, i dont ask for every single one of these questions to be answerd. And maybe some of them will be answerd in 9.1.5 or 9.2. But we already spend lots and lots of time in the Expansion and already saw the Jailer make his big move in Oribos. For me to relate and care about the events, there should have been at least solid hints to several of these glaring questions.
Funny thing here is that usually, the additional cinematics would solve and answer with ‘just enough’ hook to detail the plot behind the current expansion or the characters attached to them.
In WoD, we get a review from Maraad’s perspective as to each Warlord involved and why they’re a really big issue that needs solving.
In Legion, we are shown the background of Gul’dan, and then the Legion through Khadgar’s eyes etc.
lies that we slowly uncover in favour of the embarassing truth, that could be fun. But we aren’t even getting a cleaned-up version of events to question, we just don’t ask. It’s just like with the “No More Lies cinematic.” Sylvanas offers Anduin all the answers… and he just doesn’t ask any of the questions that most people are wondering about.