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Why the Story of Shadowlands COMPLETELY Failed | Asmongold Reacts
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- čas přidán 4. 12. 2022
- Video by Nixxiom
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The worst part about the Shadowlands is that it's ruined all pre-existing lore and any belief system races may have had. Your gods? Robots. They need to memory hole it and never speak of it again. Take a mulligan on it and brand it non-canon.
They have retconned stuff since the start of WoW, and this time, they should just retcon the whole damn expansion
@@clarenceyax8117 The very first expansion retconned HUGE things, game survived just fine.
@@ekscalybur exactly, it's nothing new, and I think we'd all prefer if it happened. Idk a single person that likes SL's story. Sylvanas was one of my favorite characters and they butchered her, and Arthas was an icon of all of video games. A shame, but not unsalvageable.
@@clarenceyax8117 i like PARTS of shadowlands story. the general exploration of the afterlives, the mention that it isnt all there is to the afterlife and there are thousands apon thousands more but these are just the governing bodies, exceedingly loved ardenweild and revendreth. the real problem is it revolved around a character everyone was sick of and a thanos that needed several expansions of proper buildup to be loved like thanos but was ruined by being pulled out of nowhere
@@CloudHiro I agree, there is very rarely an instance in which an entire thing is "bad".
I'm still annoyed that they basically perfectly set up Arthas's return and potential redemption by helping to defeat the Jailer. Then they just forgot about him. Haha
They didnt forget about it. They purpousedly deleted him.
Denuser is in a crusade to delete every toxic male character from the game.
First was Cairne, then of course Garrosh. But then he deleted Vol'Jin and Varian. Then Rhastakan died in the very 1st expansion we got to see him after hearing about him since vanilla, so his DAUGHTER could get in charge. Hell he even deleted his self insert and Sylvanus boy toy: Nathanos. Then he deleted Arthas and even somehow got rid of Anduin. Next in line to go this expansion is Malfurion. Can't have that super powerful male character around! Everything gotta be about Tyrande, Ysera, Merythra and Alextrasza.
Im sure he will find a way to get rid of Wrathion too. Hell, don't get too surprised if Thrall somehow manages to die this expansion and Aggra takes his place and also becomes the new warchief of the Horde.
Trash company. Woke virus bad
Nah they did that intentionally, you should forget about him and 'love our new characters!'
@@josejuanandrade4439 Exactly. I have been watching it happen for years as well now. Famale = strong/leader, male = weak/follower/fodder. Strong males disappear, strong females appear.
Even if the story stayed similar and still scuffed If they give us fan service letting arthas return help kill jailer then have him rule the maw or one of the zones
That would make me somewhat happy plus people gonna be more like omg since arthas is back in future expansion he might do stuff
but blizzard did one of the worst thing
Not bringing arthas back would have been fine but disenchanting him into 20 anima and dashing people of their literally 10 years after wrath of theory and copium of “bro do you think they gonna bring arthas back? Or do you think since bolvar wield the crown now he merged with nerzul and arthas? Blizzard killed any hopes of arthas gonna be back
unless they gonna do another scuff explanation on how he gonna be back like say alternative timeline arthas where he is the champion of Azeroth or something join us in main timeline but despite being scuffed that fan service would be more welcomed story wise
"If Illidan were dating Tyrande, that tree never would have burned down"
Truest WoW related statement, probably ever made.
I think Illidan would burn the tree down himself if it only could further his agenda of gaining more power to defeat the Legion. He was very single minded about it.
@@sawekjasel7877 then he would let himself be forged with light
@@alreadyd1d Why? She was trying to force him into something he didn't want. That is a different situation to one where he decides what is necessary.
And Sylvannas was turned from a cool, ambigous evildoer who Bansheeshouts,... into a whiny victim-mentality Nuclear-Karen who SJW-shouts.
Cringe and embarassing!
All because of woke incel writers without masculinity who crave a "dommy-mommy female" who berates and lectures them.
@@sawekjasel7877 it means that he clearly has boundaries like not taking away his freedom, so it's bold to assume that he's desperate enough in his goal to even burn the home of his people
I think the problem with the "Strong Female Archetype" is that the people writing it don't understand how to do it. They always fall into the pitfall of depicting the female character with "masculine traits", or they portray female characters as masculine characters, or they go for the "strong = aggressive, mean, vindictive, abrasive, etc".
There is also the "let's mention how strong and non-girly she is" all the damn time. Every time the character appears, the writers have to remind us how strong the character is as if we didn't already know.
All of those make the character feel one-dimensioned, and not like an actual person.
The so called toxic masculinity committed by a female lead role is somehow desirable in the main stream media.
You forgot the most offensive trope: a female character being strong because every male character is either dumb, evil, pathetic or all at once.
thats the product you get when all the writers are purple haired lesbians and trans
"strong = aggrssive, mean, vindictive, abrasive, etc" is typical woman writing where they don't understand anything
@@silentverge3768 Does it hurt being this dumb?
Making the Jailer behind everything in wc3 was dumb. The first half of the Undead campaign in Frozen Throne was literally a civil war between Jailer assets with all these retcons they made.
I never heard about Jailer before Shadowlands and I dont give a shit either. It's a stupid story and has nothing to do with the Warcraft people loved.
Just according to keikaku
@@idontcare9041 I think No one gave literal shit about the Jailer
@@koreancowboy42 still don't
Wait is that what the Arthas stuff explains? I just skipped the cutscenes cuz theyve been shit since Cata
The fact Sylvanas was deemed worthy of a Redemption arc but Arthas had to fade into obscurity was the biggest slap in the face.
BOTH were manipulated by the SAME ENTITY to do atrocities all while believing they were only helping the world until their motives drove them too far.
This whole "Sylvanas Strong cuz Woman, Arthas weak cuz Bobby" narrative is too forced. They could have had both and kept it equal but nooooo they wanted to overcompensate for their CEOs that couldn't stop molesting employees by making the long time fans suffer inadequate "closure", much like the victims of the aforementioned CEOs.
Blizzard see's something it wants, and it takes it. When they're called out on it, they ruin it so no one can enjoy anything.
Cus he's a white male, duh. And you know how evil they are
/s
No shit, these effing writers are woke beyond belief
I totally agree that If sylvanas was worthy of redemption so was arthas.
but not every story has to be a redemption. Some Storys can simply be tragedies.
Honestly I'd argue Sylvanas was even worse than Arthas, because she and the Forsaken were already committing atrocities before she struck a bargain with the Jailor.
that's why people don't like it, the story just lacks reasoning....if a story leaves you with questions about why this does or doesn't make sense, it didn't tell a good story. Seems like the decided on a general ending they wanted, and built the story towards that, vs letting it flow naturally in an interesting way.
@@GarroshTV Arthas even has a better fate than Sylvanas, he doesn’t exist anymore while Sylvanas is damned for all of eternity
Well thats easy
They turned arthas into wisp
They hyped the dead characters but didnt used them well
They turned arthas into a wisp
Sylvanas will never server while she served all these years
They destroyed arthas legacy
Sylvanas whindrunner
Thanos
(Also the mega fuck up is how they fucking turned the most iconic charcter in WC3 and through this game into a fukn wisp )
Right but you missed the part where they turned Arthas into a wisp
Sylvanas will never server though. Lets not forget that.
Sounds about right
wisp guys
I still can't get over how they turned Arthas into a fuckin wisp.
I'm convinced that Blizzard instructs their cinematic team to make the most badass possible cinematic for the expansion and then tries to write a story behind it in the aftermath
thats literally true, im pretty sure their writers confirmed that. The designers wanted bfa, so the writers had to make that happen.
The Shadowlands cinematic was visually beautiful but utterly nonsense in content
@@Polizeman yeah that's my point, they make a dope cinematic and the writing team just wings it based on what they make
y
t @@bmbm1
The thing about all those examples of characters like palpatine and Thanos and Snape, they're already there in the story from the beginning. They're established characters. They didn't get made up and show up out of nowhere saying "oh I was behind the whole time". That's the difference
This would have been a perfect opportunity for them to bring that fan theory to life, where Shadowlands was all a fever dream N'Zoth lead us to believe in some kind of horrific vision.
If I'd have just waited a little longer to comment this, I would have seen Asmon mention it.
Implying we ever escaped the Emerald Nightmare
For me, main reasons really are :
- Too many retcons (for example sylvanas story)
- Not fantasy enough, the universe / creator / cosmos / etc history don't work. They should have stick to the "undead" world
- The jailer was good at first but he soon became a cartoonish vilain in the worst way possible (ahah i just get what i want but i don't kill you and flee)
- Some good characters (Arthas, garrosh, lady vashj, uther for example) were underused or just not used
- Anduin was way too much on the front of the scene it was thrall 2.0...
- The resolution of "voljin story" was stupid and badly written
vuljins story is still going. he's gonna return as the loa of kings. also if you go find his wild seed bwomsamdi is there
The bad guy of shadowlands was not the Jailer. It was Steve Danuser.
The only part of the SL story I liked didn't even take place in the Shadowlands. It was that small prequel story they had where the four horsemen were hauling ass on Acherus from the Broken Shore to Icecrown because they felt the Lich King forcibly calling them. They completely thought he was up to something, and Darion was preparing to kill Bolvar and take the Mantle of Lich King if Bolvar had strayed. And instead, when they arrived, they got there just as the Helm was shattered and they were in complete disbelief.
You see the entire premise of these characters that DO work? They didn't appear out of nowhere and say "ooh master plan"
@@Thanatos2k this made me rofl
Not just the Eternals. The Titans are also robots. The leaders of the all the realms are just constructs made by the First Ones with anima from Azeroth.
They did mention, albeit very briefly, in that quest line in Zereth Mortis where you are making a new Arbiter that the bodies of the Eternals that are there as spare parts would not be anything of use on their own without the "soul" or something like that to inhabit them. So I guess their premise was that the bodies are constructs, but just like with Titans, the Watchers and now the Eternals it is some sort of conscious soul that takes use of that body and those souls are unique. So I guess if the soul is destroyed they do not exist anymore and there wouldn't be an infinite army of copy pasta Winter Queens for example. At least that is what I understood from it.
Sylvannad had A LOT of potential to be the War-chief. Instead they went with Lex Luther
She should have never been warchief. I liked Vol’Jin being warchief, but they really botched it way too soon
The problem with the Jailer is that he was a new character introduced where they had to change what happened to actually say he was behind it all. Originally it was Ner'Zhul, he wanted out of his prison and get back at the Legion for what they did to him so he cast out Frostmourne and influenced Arthas to go get it to then be led back to merge with him and become free of his frozen throne. Then they just said "the jailer did it". That never works.
Exactly! As if the Jailer planned it if he was ever mentioned.
The reason the whole "Jailer is behind everything" didn't work, was because the lore wasn't set up that way and yet Blizzard tried to melt it together anyway. If we had had a few expansion of new stuff happening that was actually set up to be the Jailer pulling the strings it probably could have worked.
they were trying to push her as a strong female character, but her treatment by other characters in game is a bit disconnected from the fact that she committed multiple genocides and is seemingly never held accountable. from the gas bombing of gilneas to the burning of teldrassil, it seems like she got pass after pass
"Strong female character" is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but personally, I think there's a different problem in Shadowlands: SFCs typically have no flaws, but Sylvanas has plenty of flaws, morally.
I think the problem was the fact that she had no discernable motivations, and no screentime that would've explained her motivations to the viewers. For that matter, the Jailor had exact the same problem, and he most definitely *wasn't* a SFC.
You can have a mary sue, or a gary stue, and they can still have moral flaws.
I think she was your typical SFC. Look at any Marvel SFC. They are exactly the same. Jailor had the same problems. Horrible writing all around.
@@veritasabsoluta4285 Strong Female Character.
@@taliesinhalliday Kirito is a popilar Gary Stu. Plenty of moral flaws. In fact, I'd argue every Mary Sue/Gary Stu has at least one moral flaw. I'm just not familiar enough with Rey to point hers out.
In fact, by definition a Mary Sue is flawed. It is a self idealized version of the author. Been that way since the term was first coined, and hasn't really changed. The author might think they aren't flawed, but the reader's opinion might be entirely different.
That said, them being, "Perfect," is a common theme. Within the context of the story they may be right, but that doesn't mean their character values, or the way they got there was.
Holdo I believe her name was, from the recent Star Wars is an example since you are familiar with Star Wars. She could have given Poe her plan, but didn't. Most would likely argue there is no reason not to give the hero of the rebellion, the guy that has saved the Rebellion single handedly several times (I believe two times up to that point,) was a dumb idea. While Poe may not have been perfect, when the leader is leading him to the conclusion that they are going to die because she is going to do nothing, his actions can definitely be seen as justified, and Holdo's greatly flawed. Yet, because the author wills it so through the power of plot armor, Holdo was still correct, despite her clear flaws.
The shadowlands covenants should have each had in depth story lines about big name characters from wows past, and exploring how they have transitioned in the afterlife.
"You have a 10 million year plan and then somebody shows up and in 2 patches it's done?"
Oh God he's giving me Witch Queen PTSD
I seem to recall during Wrath that Putress was a rogue agent, retaking of Undercity and all. The new plague WAS requested by Sylvanas, but intended to work mainly against the scourge he just had different plans. Sylvanas certainly would have no qualms against using it on the living if they stood between her and the end goal, but outright just wasting Horde and Alliance like that seemed more along what Putress/Varimathras would do. Once they retconned Putress into acting on her orders, I've always seen WoW Sylvanas as a different character from Warcraft 3. All those damn retcons man, it's no mystery at all why the story and hers especially has so many players scratching their heads. Going from subtle calculating mastermind to a "crazy blch" is sad.
Exactly.
I just started playing WOW (Retail / Server: Moonguard) I am an Undead Warlock (Level 10)… I don’t know who this Sylvanas is, but all of these corpses keep telling me that she is responsible for my resurrection. I have no memory of my former life as of yet, but I am just “going with the flow” for now and doing her bidding. I just assume that this all must be some big illusion and I am trapped in the Twisting Nether. Regardless, I must find this Sylvanas… I must rediscover my past… I must find this tavern in Goldshire…
Do nlt go to Goldshire!!!
It's a anglamatation of countless clusterfucks and fetish BS not worth it, friend!!!
Sylvanus was one of my favourite characters pre-shadowlands. It felt like such an assassination of her character to just suddenly be bending the knee to the entity indirectly responsible for just about every bad thing that's happened in her life. She should have been leading the charge to defeat the Jailer, not joining him.
She was an incredibly strong character, and all of that was thrown out the window.
As far as I’m concerned the story ended long before this. With all the cash grabbing and IP draining of the past decade or so across many of my favorite franchises, I’ve grown accustomed to ending their stories where they really should have ended. Most fans know when it’s time to let something go despite a company’s greed but their emotions get in the way or they just simply have nothing better to do than continue eating whatever they’re fed.
For me wow ended when we got to kill Arthas in the Frozen Throne. Period.
I disagree on the story ending... it literally didn't end. It's not a single player game, or a movie.. it's an MMORPG that evolves and rolls with time. People keep paying, because they enjoy it. If they enjoy it, it's not over... whether you want it to be or not.
Similar regards to Magic the Gathering and Star Wars.
@@proevilz You don't understand the comment you're replying to. Read it again.
1) weak writing
2) weak characters
3) inconsequential world
4) idiot plot
5) contrived events
6) missing setup for lame payoffs
7) insane plot armor
8) weak dialogue
9) lacking character motivations
The expansion fails basically at every front of writing. The art team is good at hiding the quality of the writing with preaty visuals and music, but in the end that's just not enough.
We need to go back in time with Cromie and bring the old Lich King Helm back. What they changed it into was a slap in the face.
"Nobody can write a good end villain in one expansion/patch"
-Points at Emet-selch
Cause He was well set up. The only Character they set up good as a villain for an Expansion was Gul'dan. But that was the original WOW team
Emet-Selch Vs The Jailer
Emet:
Charismatic
Clear goals
Taunts you every so often
Villainous monologues every so often
Bombastic and very fun boss fight.
Jailer:
Big and Commanding
Unclear and vague goals
Doesn't address heroes at all.
Overly powerful and doesn't do shit with it
Lore had to be re-written for him to be the big bad for no reason.
@@josetapia9606 they set the Lich King up since classic
@@josetapia9606 The ascians were set up, but not Emet, he was a character of his own and always stole the highlight of the scene never doing anything pointless or wasteful to the plot.
@@duncanmc797 The jailer and the maw were kind of set up through Silvanas with the eternal darkness thing if she died again, but the delivery was horrendous on all levels
My favorite comment “ the books are irrelevant “ so so true. P.s. all those “it worked “ your missing the context . It works when it’s written into the story from the start , it doesn’t work when you try to retcon it and try to give the new baddie gravitas by artificially connecting them to events we all know , think and feel they had no part of
Most pointless stupid death of Vol'jin that caused Sylvanas to become Warchief. He literally got shanked by some random NPC and died to poison.
24:00 --- Snape didnt murder Dumbledor: they had an agreement. Thats a difference. To (semi-)quote Dumbledor: "you would fulfill a dying man's last wish" - because, at that moment, Dumbledor was already dying due to a curse. - Go read the book, and pay attention this time :P
Well it was mentioned by McConnell and we know he is kinda dumb.
@@kegosan7622 Yes and no... its hard to tell as a viewer... sometimes he's incredibly dumb, and in other occasions he says something really smart... But then again, I suppose its the same with every human :D
The stewards are not slaves, they are handy helpers that soul being is to be helpful. when they aren't being helpful they can actually get quite down/depressed.
McConnel.... really dude.. really? Snape did what he did so save Malfoy from becoming something he is not, a killer. Snape does what he does, to fulfil his pledge to Dumbledore and get himself beyond reproach with the death eaters, so he can work from the inside of the org to keep things from going completely out of control.
The thing is Lei Shen had set up here and there before hand through out the entire xpac. The Jailer just shows up. Hell even Emperor Palpatine had more setup than Zovaal.
The thing is, the people watching these kinds of videos already played it and know all these things, its just a painful reminder. I wish someone would make Blizzard Devs watch things like this to gain some perspective.
It seems like the last several expansions have been reskinned stuff. Get a new continent, level up alongside some table mini-game gimmick to drain time and when the content starts getting old, open a new zone in the same world to flood into to throw a bone to players before the next iteration of an expansion comes out. I hope they can figure out a way to change up this model. Figure out ways to bring people back to Kalimdor or Azeroth zones for some things. Also, the central characters are becoming power females in boob armor. Activision needs to mix it up and get back to making games that are interesting. Dragonflight looks promising in some ways but the new class/race is pretty complex and limiting for everyone. Would have liked a little more flexibility than what we got.
Besides liking Sylvanas for being hot, reason why people like her is because Arthas (most liked character in wow) destroyed her city, killed her family and made quick work of her, just to raise her in Undeath to serve him as punishment. That made a lot of people pity her and actually acknowledge her as a good character seeking revenge on Arthas. But then all of a sudden she becomes leader of horde, destroys Lich King's crown all by herself like It's nothing, always says badass lines, everybody respects her and she is the main character. Nobody asked for that, sometimes less is more.
I would say in Greek Mythology, it’s like this:
- Olympus = realm of the gods
- Elysium = Heaven
- Underworld = Purgatory
- Tartarus = Hell
What I wanna know is since Kil'jaeden created the lich king in WC3 does that mean the burning legion worked with the jailer? I'm scratching my head over this bullshit. God shadowlands really was the worst thing blizzard ever made...
They retcon the whole thing. They implied that the jailer was behind the burning legion corruption.
@@XMAlek oh god that's so stupid 🤦
man there are some historical inaccuracies here. now im not a warcraft loremaster but based on what i watched and read, it's partially inaccurate. sylvanas only wanted revenge on arthas ever since warcraft 3 and was a bitch even since then. however after the fall of the lich king, a short story came out that detailed her jumping off icecrown citadel, dying, and coming back due to a valkyr taking her place in the place she went to; then she decided to not just treat the forsaken as tools, but to genuinely partake in making them prosper, her being part of them. this was majorly retconned in shadowlands, where "actually" what happened was she talked to the jailer when she was dead and colluded with him to rewrite the cycle of life and death such that it's more free and fair. not a bad story in theory, but the implemention + retcon made it suck. idk what happened with her between the end of wotlk to the beginning of legion, but she wasn't a hero from the moment she died to the end of wotlk.
I know everyone here talking about how blizzard butchered Arthas the most, but I'd also like to point out how dirty they did Bolvar. The guy had so much potential as the new Lich King and they just turned him into a joke. One of the most disappointing moments in Shadowlands for me.
Denathrius was the best character by a mile he deserved more seasons
Imagine if all the journals and stuff were signed Zovall and it got darker and darker then at the very end you find out he is the jailer
Why it failed? Because Bolvar who was hyped for years was trashed from the start, then the helm of domination was destroyed and changed into a forgettable and idiotic crown. Anduin became a crappy version of Arthas, for a while then came back to normal. Sylvanas became an underling, and betrayed to her surprise, considering her big brain. Then got redeemed and forgiven because surprise!! She doesn't remember anything. Oh, and the jailer was as boring as he was big and strong.
I had a running theory that Sylvanas never returned from Ice Crown. It was something that escaped the maw. Sylvanas after Cata was different in game...
Her actions make more sense. The plague should have been what broke the mechanisms of the Shadowlands because souls were no longer leaving Azeroth. Then her actions in SL makes more sense as she tries to get close to the jailer. The arrow at the end of Sanctum was meant for the GLYPH the Jailer was holding. Breaking it undoes all of the work he did and would return the control to the Arbiter... then his portal and assault on Sepulcher was a last ditch effort at control.
Imagine how interesting it would have been if we encountered someone in the Wild Hunt that remembers being Sylvanas...
And there were hints all over the place that the covenants were actually evil. I mean the damn Night Fae inspiration are so badass DEMONS fear them.
i used to like Sylvanas when she was truly undead. She was ruthless, cold, apathetic, logical, calculating, unethical, the ends justify any means, neutral evil. Her inhumanity made her cool.
Blightbombing Gilneas and the Wrathgate are perfect examples. Willing to throw Alliance AND Horde forces into the meat grinder at a chance of taking down Arthas. Calculating that Gilneas could be used as a staging point for the Alliance within touching distance of Lordaeron, that the Forsaken were losing their numbers due to rot (thus strength and influence even within the Horde) ... Sylvanas went Scorched Earth. Blight the city, raise them in undeath unwillingly, fix both problems. The worse thing is that it made sense. What she was capable of, horrified Garrosh.
BfA and Shadowlands assassinated her character. Torching Teldrassil, telling everyone they're all nothing when killing Saurfang, suffering massive losses in the Battle for Dazar'alor and subsequently aligning with Azshara/N'zoth to break even, aiding a First One she didn't know the first thing about nor their motivations. They were all completely impulsive.
Correction, Drakka died because she go backstabbed by people she thought were on her side.
Meanwhile, the cinematic is trying to portray that she died in battle. That's the biggest joke.
You know why Thanos and all those others worked? WE'VE SEEN THEM BEFORE THE MAIN CONFRONTATION! Multiple times even. Lei Shen comparison is pointless! Azmon's being a hypocrite.
Lei Shen was an amazing addition to WoW's lore, and one of the few standout characters that influenced the events on Azeroth way before being officially introduced. And the reason it worked was: 1. competent and sensible writing team, 2. the expansion itself was mostly brand-new lore, with Pandaria being the continent that the players (and rest of the world) knew very little to begin with. You had a blank check to do anything there, so creating a brand new character with the magnitude of Lei Shen was considerably easier to accomplish.
Both bosses were liked because they were a cool side story. They were not introduced a the main villain of the expansion and had changed the entire lore of the Warcraft universe.
exactly. New villains are always welcomed as opposed to some never heard of behind the scene string puller (because they didn't exist until recently) who was behind earlier established lore
"If GRRM wrote Jailer everyone would like!" Yeah no, L comparison, he would never wrote a God of Death as a villain in a setting where the green guys fight the blue guys, the idea itself is horrible and full of explanations that would need to be done to be considered a good story, not to say that most characters of GRRM have a shit ton of buildup.
I loved playing Shadowlands. It was my first time playing wow. But I really hated being in hell all the time. I only liked three of the zones and did my best to stay out of the others. I’m enjoying the new release so much more. The new zones for the most part are delightful and a joy to spend time in. I’m having a bit of a hard time though because I got used to a routine that no longer exists.
Denathrius was the Bwonsamdi of Shadowlands. The one character people liked in a sea of trash.
Its the most important steps in creating a successfull vilain.
1) Show them briefly introducing them by subtile means.
2) Show their motives and possible flashbacks that caused them to be this way.
3) Last but not least, Show what they are capable of doing, why they want to use this, that or this thing
And Blizzard failed all those steps about the Jailer except the second step but thats it..
Btw in my opinion expansions should have a better continuation... building up a vilain takes time, not just one expansion, true vilains that everyone likes took years to complete, lot of years in the making. If the Lich King was for example only introduced during TLK, trust me, nobody would have liked him cause nobody likes a "Wish Edition vilain."
There were retcons though… like the saronite. It was the whole package of what we believed to be the story, what surrounded the lich king, was replaced with one that wasn’t satisfactory.
The Shadowlands Agenda story was to mirror what is happening IRL. They really want you to subconsciously think the idea of restarting
dumbledore was dying already and he had the elder wand that voldemort wanted, by kiling an already dying man, he secured the wand to himself avoiding draco from both ripping his soul with the curse and from dying to doldemort, also, securing his position as a double agent further making voldemort believing in him and saving harry potter as well: he ripped his own soul, died for the kids and spared an old man from suffering, all while looking like the bad guy
Sylvanus’ story wasnt bad because they made her too much of a strong female character. Its because her actions made no sense, and were often counter intuitive. She did things to push the story forward, and not what an actual character would do
Exactly. Warcraft has plenty strong female characters, I'd say Sylvanas always was one of them. It's that anyone who knows her character apparently knows better than Blizzard.
Personally, this is how I see the Shadowlands story.
If Sylvanas was the focal point, the Jailer gets forshadowed up until 9.2 to build up his story, and it ends up being the soul of Arthas that is the last one to free him (have it being found in the Maw, but not used up but agents of good and bad looking for it), but that ultimately is the thing that dooms him, that creates a better A plot. The throughline to the rest of the cosmos building is still allowed to happen via the maldraxxus/Ardenweald/Ravendreth storylines, and as Asmon says dive into the Uther storyline in 9.1.5 and ask why are the Kyrian able to wipe away free will, and who determined that? Was it always a part of the cycle, or was it built in post Zorval being ousted?
Hindsight being 20/20, it had the potential to be a good to great narrative, even with everyone's burnout of Sylvanas.
Let’s be honest. We got Shadowlands not because it fit the story but because a producer watched Stranger Things and wanted to add the Upside Down to WoW, story be damned. I mean, no wonder it made people mad.. they killed off the Lich King when it was the most liked story line lol. Didn’t pay off.
To me it didn't feel like World of Warcraft. Mainly because for this expansion you kinda LEAVE the WORLD of Warcraft.
Shyvanna "breaks" the world and we get access to the Shadowlands, but this has no consequence on the main world. We never see anyone from Lordaeron or Ogrimmar reacting to this fact, not in the expansion, not in the end, not ever. It's like it never happened.
And you are for the most part on another universe that has nothing to do with World of Warcraft, and... you just don't care.
It's like, imagine for next expansion a NEW portal opens up and then you are playing Roblox.
They had their chance; perfect rewrite of the Shadowlands story.
1.) Players followed Zovaal the Jailer to Zeroth Mortis and lost as we see the Jailer win as he claims Azeroth's World Soul ripping it out of the planet and forcing her awake as he opens a new Death Gate entering Azeroth as we are to weak to follow. End of the Shadowlands Expansion. Whatever else they did prior was just filler to reach this point.
2.) Next Expansion: Eternity's End... Players start off the next expansion waking up to Khadgar and Jaina opening a new portal to Azeroth as we know Khadgar for some reason ended up coming late to Shadowlands... but with his help and Thrall healing us back up we return to Azeroth where we make a heartwrenching discovery that Zovaal had invaded Azeroth and that Azeroth is in the midst of a Cosmic War with the Old Gods revived by Xal'atath so the Black Empire has re-emerged, the Naaru and Yrel has come and they were serving as an unlikely ally for now prior Zovaal's arrival defending Azeroth trying to wipe out the Scourge that was still a threat, Azshara makes her move as well as an unlikely ally as returning the favor for releasing her from N'zoth for now, while we got the Dragon Isles being discovered and the Incarnates as an unlikely ally with Fyrakk sparking a Civil War with the Elementals to help cripple the Old Gods attempts to re-enslave them while Denathrius was never abandoned and both him and Zovaal are torturing Azeroth until Zovaal is forced to make a move when a late arrival of the Pantheon brought their champion Sargeras with them as we see an epic clash between Zovaal the Jailer against Sargeras the Champion of the Titans and former master of the Burning Legion with the Titans dealing with the Old Gods and others as we see the Cosmic War take a toll on the planet as even the clash between Zovaal and Sargeras quakes the planet itself Denathrius intended to betray Zovaal only to be interrupted by the true threat that the players themselves caused by opening a way into Azeroth leading to the Devourers themselves being the truest threat and overrunning now weakened Cosmic Forces and even becoming a bigger threat as they adapt like those in Zeroth Mortis did to their forces and grew stronger eventually a true Eternity's End. Perhaps ve the FFXIV start of a WoW 2?
I'm still mad about the tree burning, even more mad that either us, the players, or a major character wasn't allowed to kill Sylvanas.
I like Asmongold's version of Illidan getting with Tyrande and never letting the tree fall.
As a relative new player to WoW (started playing in BFA), Shadowlands made absolutely no sense to me. It just didn’t feel right running around Bastion, etc. Contrast that experience with Dragonflight, and I’m having a blast. I feel like I understand the story and I’m connected to the zones and want to explore, etc.
The Shadowlands should've been the Titan's response to Yogg-Saron's "curse of flesh", which introduced true mortality on Azeroth. A Titan construct used to retain mortal souls, then to reintroduce them into the "material" reality... not the "afterlife" as one doesn't really exist outside of the Void Lords' belly. The Titans cherish life too much to merely let it expire, or languish, or be used as fuel for robotic cats.
Hypothetically, the Shadowlands and its Covenants were Titan creations meant to govern this system, extant in a realm separate from but residing in the Twisting Nether. This would explain the Void Lords attempted invasion. And, hell, this may even have been the reality if not for the "First Ones".... adding such a concept undermines all previous lore, negates the Titans efforts, makes the Legion irrelevant and makes the dynamic between the V.Lords / Titans very peculiar. If the First Ones really were the progenitors of all creation, then they're really messed up beings. Why author a perpetual conflict between Titanic order and Void Lord chaos? Entertainment? If so, perhaps the Jailor was right... but, then, saying that would also make Sargeras right.
Remember when Vol'jin and Sylvanas absolutely hated each other? That would have been a nice plotpoint to resolve before killing Vol'jin and making her the new Warchief. Y'know, like vol'jin having a vision of his death and being told slyvanas needs to be WC and her refusing that responsibility while the rest of the horde leaders try to make her a good warchief. Her just accepting ANYTHING Vol'jin said or ordered made no sense to me. Granted i'm not the most knowledgable about warcraft lore and haven't played a lot after WoD, but it still annoys me that not only they killed my boy Vol'jin but even fucked up Sylvanas and her relationship with Vol'Jin like they never interacted before him dying.
The reason Sylvanas went hard into the villain route from grey was because as we found out afrisabi was pissed off about garrosh being killed off and decided to screw over Sylvanas in response.
It’s only until he was ousted after the scandal did the new lead try to do a heel face turn and salvage the character from being stupid evil
Where did you hear it was Garrosh? Afrasiabi was way better for the franchise than Danuser. Danuser's qualification is that he has not been caught molesting coworkers. I wish Afrasiabi had exhibited self control for both the women involved and the health of the franchise.
The problem is that art and Capitalism don't go well toghether. You can't create a good story if Bobby is breathing on your neck that you have to finish 300 pages by tomorrow morning.
Good “Strong Female Characters” are just well written characters that don’t require their gender to be justified… they’re good characters that happen to be female, not female characters that happen to be written good. 🤷🏼♂️ they’re putting the carriage before the horse…
I like that the dragonflight zones r connected vs shadowlands having to go thru flight gates.
2:56 - objection, many people like her (myself included) because she was a very tragic character back in WarCraft 3. Arthas killed Terenas (but he was an old fool not listen to the prophet), Arthas killed Antonides (but he also was an old fool, not listen to the prophet also) and Arthas killed Sylvanas and what was her fault? Doing her job? She try to protect the sunwell her best skills, and then she became an undead cannot rest after she died. Idk what is tragic if not this is. This is how a side caharcter gets a much larger roll. I dont think back then in Blizzard they thought one they shes got a prominent role. Like Boromir in Lord of the Rings.... plus shes hot :D
My issue with Shadowlands was that the lead up it was poor, and the end of it was poor. I suspect that Blizzard knew the full backstory and secrets and other little details and it all made sense ot them, but they forgot that we didn't know all the stuff they did, and it never occurred to them that we'd need to see behind the curtain in order to follow the story. It was like reading a great book that someone had torn an entire chapter out of, to then keep reading thinking this makes no sense, another missing chapter, and then came the dragons. Sylvanus was clearly down a rabbit hole into madness, that was building up for a long time, but she was hanging on there until she wasn't. Was being made leader of the Horde the thing that tipped her over the edge? We needed to see into that rabbit hole before she hit the bottom of it and teamed up with the Jailer. Maybe a patch period where we went down the rabbit hole with her, tried and failed to save her, and then oh shit she's teamed up with the big bad and there's nothing anyone could do, what happens next? Shadowlands. Then end it with a finishing patch that we get to play through that filled in the blanks, told a deeper story where we get to see more behind the curtain to make it make sense, answer things like what happened to Arthus, why didn't he get redemption, was the Jailer really the big bad or was he actually a messed up character doing bad things for good reasons? It feels like they realised they messed up the story as we knew it to be, and instead of trying to fix it, they just wrote it off and moved onto the next expansion hoping that would solve the problem. To me now, it feels like we didn't really go to the afterlife, we just experienced something really freaking weird, like a dream state where we wake up and remember most of it but there's chunks missing which makes it weird and confusing. Maybe we died and then we got a res and were made to play out that weird dream, only to come to and wonder what was real and what wasn't and where the hell are we and what happened, only for the person that ressed us to say, "I dunno, I just got here, found you dead and ressed you, I think you were out for a while though. I don't know when you died, but the there's dragons here now."
Blizzard: "Let's have Sylvanas tell Arthas to fuck off. It's not like he's one of our most beloved character or anything right guys?"
But Dumbledore was dying already, and he asked Snape to kill him and use his death to cement the death eaters trust on Snape.
only few days since the release of DF and I already forgot 99% of NPC's name in SL except Sire Denathrius, this clearly shows that only SD is the well done Character in SL. IMO
The problem with Sylvanus wasn't her being 'strong female'... it was that they Assasinated the entire concept of the Warchief they'd been BUILDING UP using Vol'Jin as the sacrificial goat after having him become warchief for all of ONE expansion where he got Sidelined for the entire plot...
The moment that Vol'Jin got killed off... I just finished with WoW and haven't played it since.
The whole thing of them making Vol'Jin make her Warchief while he's dying and blitzed out of his brain was fucking insulting to his character in the first place.
Dumbledore forced Snape to kill him, there's a scene where he says it HAS to be Snape that kills him to protect Draco and the elder wand.
The reason why people hated how Arthas was treated wasn't really that Blizzard made him less powerful than the Jailer or manipulated by him. It was that Blizzard set up this story about going on a quest to achieve vengeance and the greater good for any cost, that domination by other and more powerful being plays a role in how you act, and then you become the very thing you fought against without even realizing... And they made the people who knew you before those tragic events aware of this stuff that they didn't consider before... It was a perfect setup for if not a redemption story, but at least for a resolution story. And then Blizzard goes: and the character who has this Ark is.... SYLVANAS! Yeah, f you Arthas. You were always an asshole. Sylvanas was always better than you anyway.
"My son no king rules forever."
"They become a blue lightball."
Shadowlands really wasn’t that bad. The gameplay was fun idc what anyone says. Yeah covenants could have been better. Yeah torghast sucked. But these issues were never as bad as people are saying. The main issue for me was the content drought and the rushed storyline (most likely a result of same issue). The story sucks for sure but i feel like so most people including myself don’t really care about wows story much anymore. WoD was still a worse story for me
As a hardcore dedicated Hordie since vanilla WoW, I've hated what they've done to Sylvanas the past few expansions. The Forsaken's never really been a great fit with the rest of the Horde but that was part of the fun of it. And there were SO many ways you could take Sylvanas and the Forsaken. Like you said, she was morally gray. Instead they just turned her into a crazy bitch villain willing to screw over the rest of the Horde and even her own people just to...do...something? I know that Blizzard normally writes stories with all the subtlety of a rockslide, but damn, this was awful. (And it made no sense for her to be Warchief. The Tauren wouldn't stand for it. Trolls and orcs, probably not. The blood elves, I dunno.)
WoD was better than this Arthas killer Shadowlands.
Now this is the worst expansion ladies and gentlemens.
To be fair burning down the Tree was extremely important. There were Worgen on it and the only cure is Fire.
Actually, Snape killed Dumbledore saving Malfoy from having to live with . Snape and Dumbledore were friends, Snape knew that Dumbledore was already dying of a curse.
My thing with Sylvannas is that the Sylvannas that we all knew all the way till BFA would NOT have joined forces with the Jailer. She wasn't stupid and would have figured out quite quickly who was the person for whom orchestrated all the things that happened to herself, her homeland, and the people of Lorderon. If she hated Arthas the Lich King then she would be entirely wrathful against the guy who made or made the circumstances than made Arthas happen. I could see the Jailer manipulating Sylvannas using her rage against her to attack the Lich King and destroy the helm of Domination thinking it would have done something to disrupt the Jailer's power on Azeroth but nothing after that made any sense to me. The bit about her soul being split in two I could actually see it and kinda always suspected that was something that happened to her, its a common enough theme in vampire movies and shows but again thats something that would have made her even more vengeful. I would have loved to see a raging fight between those two aspects of herself and seeing which would have won but again another missed opportunity. I frankly still don't have a full grasp on what was exactly promised to anyone by the Jailer and what could possibly have caused her to ignore to over a decades worth of lore and character development to join his side.
A big question I still have for shadowlands is, why can't demons go to the afterlife? We all know 'the immortal demon soul' returns to the twisting nether, and a physical form can be reconstituted there over time and only killing them within the twisting nether will finally end them.
Sooo, why aren't they going to the shadowlands? Why didn't Illidan go to the shadowlands, causing massive problems with Legion's storyline? Why doesn't the player character go to the shadowlands when they die? How come there are ghosts and sentient undead and shit on Azeroth? What about other deathly realms like bwomsamdi's realm? Why could Warcraft 3 heroes come back indefinitely at an altar?
Like, the shadowlands are shown to be super fucking incompetent at their one purpose and in conflict with most of the established lore.
The jailor is 100 percent a retcon. Period. You’re wrong.
Only connection that I noticed between Jailer and Lich King were the Nathrezim. Nathrezim were mystery from the begining. They were dubbed as Lich King's "jailers". And since they work for Denatrius who is serving Jailer, connection can be noticed. But that's that.
I loved Sylvanas, up to the point where she went from a cunning cutthroat leader, to just reckless. For no good reason too, as the story progressed you tried to come up with reasons for her madness to finally make it all click....but it turns out she went from the lich king to the jailor in some twisted irony....
World of Warcraft is like Game of Thrones. Cosmic Leaders are always manipulating each other and advancing their own agendas by corrupting their rivals' goals. The Nathrezim did not know Sargeras would create the Burning Legion or lead an army of demons. They just wanted to fracture the Titan Pantheon, nothing more.
“One expansion villains don’t work” is objectively wrong because FFXIV’s most popular villain existed for one expansion.
Dumbledore was dying already and Snape did so to gain trust from the bad guy and to prevent Draco Malfoy to soil his hands.
Can you Imagine the ripple of feels you would have created if you were to reunite with Tirion Fordring in Maldraxus.
What I didn't like about Shadowlands is that it doesn't feel like Warcraft. I am invested in Warcraft because it's Orcs vs. Humans as it was in the original game. It's about 2 sides battling against one another who have their own reasons and justifications.
What happens when you introduce an obviously bad guy that everyone can agree is bad into a story that is originally about 2 morally grey sides? You get a shit-tier Blizzard story.
They're introduced this whole cosmic alliance chart thing that has nothing to do with Orcs vs. Humans. I don't care about Light vs. Void or Life vs. Death or Fel vs whatever. I care about Orcs vs. Humans in a Game of Thrones / Battletech story.
It was at this exact point that huge guilds sought other huge guilds to fight. Those guilds left their own servers transferring or even starting new toons to be on the same server with the most well-known WPVP guild. Some even switched factions en masse to oppose that guild. THAT was the moment of Truth. The Truth was that 40 players are the largest amount of players that can occupy any position. At around 40 v 40, the outer 20 cannot see the others and those others cannot see them. The game itself did this. The biggest guilds went to all that trouble to meet on the same server and learned of this fatal flaw in the game. At 80-100 players in the same spot it was possible to crash the server. Meanwhile, the quality of your graphics card and connection determined if you could stay online at all in crowded places. So the expansion had nothing to do with the decline of WOW. Blizzard did not support their claim. Advertised as millions interacting, the game did not operate to support above 40 V 40. Hence, they lost the hearts of every realm.
From the perspective of a woman, I really hated what they did to Sylvanas, but, I also hate what they did to Tyrande as well. They're both on a trajectory of a "strong woman" stereotype who have apparently no flaws, but their biggest flaws is actually just being intolerable as hell. I'm going to support the actual interesting female character: Thaylssra.
So Sylv literally runs genocide, tries to destroy the universe and she can be forgiven? but arthas who just treatened a continent turns into wisp? wtf
Shadowlands' story had so much potential, and it's a shame they didn't do it justice.. Dragonflight's story on the otherhand, seems rather boring/simple? "Dragon-home go BRR, oh no big old bad dragon awake, wut do?"
I loved Sylvanas: she is hot not because of her body but her personality! You would be addicted to her personality and voices if you were undead. I played undead for many expansions since vanilla. Her character development was shocking to me, her character development feels like a betrayal to the undead race.
Lets be honest here ppl only liked Sylvanas because she is hot and sexy no other reason tbh.And feminists like her attitude.
What didn't work?
-bringing back too many dead characters with already fulfilled narrative arcs
-shitting on sylvanas character even more than bfa
-the jailer
-anduin the 2.0 arthas
They just implied the Kerrigan (Starcraft) treatment to Sylvanas
I thought Kil'Jedean was the one behind the Lich King. he's the one who gave that orc... uh... Ner'zhul the power to become the Lich King to prepare the Azeroth for the the Burning Legion's invasion and Ner'zhul was the one who betrayed them and became a new faction of the Scourge.
The hypocrisy of it all is that she's only a strong female character because she has borrowed power from an even stronger male character, without which she couldn't have defeated Bolvar, a strong male character. The implication here is probably not what Blizzard was going for, but it's what we got.