Shadowlands Discussion (SPOILERS)

A setting can have an explained / ‘scientific’ magic system and still be interesting; honestly, having something the reader can understand (knowing the mechanics of) can sometimes add to the enjoyment of when it’s used, within the constraint of previously set rules, to solve a problem. It isn’t specifically it being explained outside the game - Blizz does that for everything.

Good video on it:

WoW’s problem isn’t that the magic is explained, it’s that the world itself has been shrunk thanks to years of expansions / OOC media like the Chronicles outlining the history of the universe since day one, along with numerous retcons and the same five characters doing everything.

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Not true
Blizzard recently removed portals thereby increasing world size by 300 %

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Apparently, we are going to see Arthas in the Shadowlands. Not entirely surprising, but still. I wonder how people are going to react to that?

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In the same way they reacted to Illidan coming back. Fanservice is here, so they fanboys have to like it from the get go… Even if it ends up ruining the brought back character and their arc.

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Arthas had a good story and a good end. He doesn’t need to return, unless we just see him for a bit just for the sake of it. But major part of the story? Heeeeell nawh.

Yeah he’s the Jailer, but they’ll be like “oh it’s not the Arthas you used to know!!!”

Just like nothing stays truly dead in WoW… No Hero or Villain who had a real conclusion to their story is free from the hands of those hack writers.

As I said before… Shadowlands is gonna be a “Member…?” expansion.

“Father! Is it … over…?”

“At long last, no King rules forever my son.”

“I see only darkness … before me …”

We thought by darkness he was referring to death or the maw, in truth he was referring to the future of his character as Blizzard drag him through the dirt and utterly ruin the close of his story in Shadowlands.

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Well… they are dead. We are the intruders upon the realm of the dead.

“Yo, nice to see you again fam. BTW Illidan’s still angsty about you beating him up.”

“Also you were right about Thrall & orcs and you did nothing wrong with Stratholme. You should have killed Sylvanas though.”

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Idk guys I like a lot of the ideas for the expansion, despite my initial worry following the reveal trailers.

But I’m just not sure I can deal with us hanging out in the literal eternal afterlife. I find it super jarring for some reason.

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Joke’s on us if Sylv breaking the sky gets him out of the Maw.

All according to keikaku.

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Arthas will finish the job and kill Sylvanas for good.

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The Shadowlands are not even true death to begin with. That alone irks me that we can now travel in it.
Bet ya 50K gold that Death has a lot of layers and True death is not even true death at all… But a Necromantic realm where there’s only that one gothic theme of death.

I mean tbh once you’ve met the literal gods that shaped your world, where else is there to explore that is a step up?

No stone left un-turned here people. We won’t stop until we’ve solved and explored every possible mystery.

I like that actually. Reminds me of that Ghost novels where the Twilight (the after life) is made of layers more or less close to daylight (living) or the true death thing; and the ghosts doesn’t know what is after they move on.

While I like the Shadowlands for its content so far, I really dislike the theme of it. It just cheapens death a lot in my opinion.

Then again, living heroes went to Hades a lot in the Ancient Greek myths, so whatever…

Gonna go ahead and agree there.

I’m interested in seeing the lore of the place, and Torghast definitely has my attention in terms of PvE… but the Afterlife™ is usually something I’m hesitant to reach out and touch in any setting. It demystifies something best left somewhat unknown.

We’ll see. This is still a year or so from now, and we will be up to our necks in datamined content at some point before then.

Plus, if we do end up in a scenario where only the Champions of Azeroth™ get to go there in terms of the canon lore, the rest of our characters will probably remain almost the same as before Shadowlands in terms of insight.

It just has the potential of ruining a lot of the previously established ideas of the afterlife for various races and cultures, as well as probably not explaining oddities like ghosts on Azeroth like Pamela Redpath not being able to move on.

Like cultures that go to the afterlife to join their ancestors may end up in a different area of the Shadowlands from each other because of what they got up to in life. Draka being in one specific area of the Shadowlands for example.

The more world building they do, ironically, the more destructive it is to the setting.

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