Shadowlands: Empty Manipulations with no Soul

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Bolvar Key Art.

You know, I really do hate myself. I have certain issues with self-respect, motivation and all that, so dedicating my time and exposing myself to things I don't enjoy is certainly not healthy. Observing current state of Warcraft franchise is a exhausting experience that makes me miserable. I'm definitely not alone here, but I believe this perspective doesn't get as much attention as it deserves.

What baffles me is how submissive some people are when it comes to current story and lore of this franchise and view it as "Well, you just have to deal with it and be open minded" or "Just turn your brain off and have fun", which I think is just wrong. Is it just me or when you have to force yourself to enjoy this kind of thing, maybe that's a bad idea?

Warcraft always struggled with its lore. There were moments when Blizzard was close to it, like RPG series and another point I'll address in more detail. I'm not denying that. I don't want to ruin the fun for someone else. If you somehow enjoy this: I'm happy for you. I don't, and there're reasons for it that I'll go over in this post.

Degradation of the Franchise.

Chronicle series was one of a few great things that happened with Warcraft. Blizzard seemed to learn their mistake with making RPG material non-canon and decided to finally resolve the everlasting issues with consistency in the lore of the franchise. Even though they left some things out either to introduce them later or let them remain a mystery, which isn't something bad either. Volume 1-2 were great while third book is just there. Still, Chronicle was a definitive source of canon that Warcraft really needed, and it worked well... until Blizzcon 2019:

Steve Danuser: "Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, Chr-... Chronicle is something that we worked on. You know, all of us together going through the Warcraft history, but the, the thing to remember about Chronicle, that I what you to think about, is that, you know, even... Any history, even something that's as encyclopedic as Chronicle is written from certain point of view and if you look at history of Azeroth that was contained in there and even, you know, what it talked about in terms of the cosmos and things like that. Whose point of view would that've been from?"

Voice from crowd: "Titans!"

Steve Danuser: "That's right! The Titans' point of view and the people who worked for the Titans..."

Credits of all Chronicle books.

That's obviously a retcon, instead this time they don't want to say it straight away because Blizzard knows how tired people of them nowadays. "It's not a retcon. It's just Titans being wrong." Which, I think, is an interesting comparison because of what real purpose Chronicles had when Chris Metzen worked on them. He even mentioned it in a video dedicated to this series of books, so you know how important it was for them at the time:

Chris Metzen: "Warcraft Chronicle is the first in a series of books that attempts to codify and tighten up, and clarify the history of Warcraft."

I just think that it's very disrespectful towards all fans of Warcraft's lore, especially Chris Metzen and those who bought Chronicles for their original purpose. There's nothing wrong with usage of "unreliable narrator": if anything, sometimes it can be really cool. You know, like in in-game books from The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. But here, Blizzard just retconned an encyclopedia written by and from the perspective of a creator of Warcraft's lore and turned it into "opinion piece" of Titans that'll become irrelevant very soon, if not already. Not to mention that you technically can't (and shouldn't) trust any information there because it's no longer presents the actual turn of events.

Preface from World of Warcraft Chronicle Volume 1.

There are many cases of such downgrade. I could talk about things like, let's say, The Burning Legion or Old Gods, that were utterly destroyed by current story/lore team in one way or the other that negatively affect Warcraft and its uniqueness. However, I want to focus on Shadowlands because it does that in a whole new level.

Before going into story/lore specifically, I want to talk about how current setting negatively affects the visuals and music of the game. You know, one of the few things that always remained solid throughout World of Warcraft and finally those started to crumble. Transition into this "cosmic soup opera" setting, that on itself is less interesting than watching new players in World of Warcraft: Classic constantly wipe on murlocs, was directly translated into other aspects of the game.

By looking at Shadowlands' visuals, I don't see Warcraft. Instead, it reminds me of some random eastern MMO or, what feels more appropriate, a Disney cartoon and maybe even Diablo 3 (I'm still not sold on that one). Weird mix, I know... and what's up with this weird shading effect on some models? It just looks generic and inferior to the rest of the game. What about music? It's there, that's about all I can say. My only memory about listening to Login Screen music on YouTube was "...oh, it stopped playing".

Kel'Thuzad's model from Shadowlands. Taken from WowHead.

I feel terrible for these teams because I know they can do so much better. From what I heard and seen, Exile's Reach is the only part of Shadowlands that feels at least a bit like Warcraft. I didn't look deep into its story or at all, but music and weapon models (which are just the best in expansion) are not bad.

Fear of Original Ideas.

This tagline refers to a term I've come on with in order to characterize one of the main issues that Shadowlands has. Specifically, how repetitive and unoriginal it feels despite what Blizzard supposedly trying to achieve. It's about the recycled nature of material and current story team's obsession with "true originality" over already established continuity of Warcraft. As if they're aware that they can't (or don't want to) come up with something truly original and fitting for the franchise. Mists of Pandaria was great in that regard, but they just can't copy it right. Let me write a list of several things, so it becomes more obvious:

• The Jailer — Lich King and Sargeras.

• Maw — Icecrown and Argus.

• Torghast, Tower of the Damned — Icecrown Citadel and Antorus, the Burning Throne.

• The First Ones — Titans.

• Eternal Ones — Titan Keepers.

• Oribos — Dalaran and Legion's Titan architecture.

• Brokers — Ethereals.

• Bastion — Halls of Valor.

• Kyrian — Spirit Healers and Val'kyr.

• Maldraxxus — Scourge and its architecture.

• Aranakk — Nerubian.

• Ardenweald — Emerald Dream.

• Sylvar — Satyr.

• People of Fyzandi — Night Elves.

• Revendreth — Suramar.

• Venthyr — San'layn and Nathrezim.

• Stoneborn — Gargoyle.

Did you notice the pattern here? Those things are present as something more ancient or original than it is in reality. It emphasizes developers' laziness and absence of soul in Shadowlands. I'm not talking about "the soul of Warcraft": it's just soulless on its own and many things within it are just raw and not as deep as Blizzard tries to demonstrate them.

Revendreth's existence doesn't have much sense when it's literally just "Maw, but you might get redeem". All Kyrian except for Uther looking similar, undead spirits... Undead spirits in Bastion. Soulshapes in Andenweald and Amber Kearnen's transformation into Aranakk in Shadowlands are obvious disguising lack of desire from Blizzard to actually develop the "vast cosmic universe" they "want" to unveil.

I will go over a couple of characters that demonstrate these issues pretty well and then, just like in "True Tragedy of Warcraft 3: Reforged", we'll go over and take a closer look at lead developer that's responsible for taking the series in such direction.

The Big Bad Jailer.

Antagonist of "Titan++" level, very ancient... and typical "evil guy". What we know about Zovaal is that he's just evil, did something unspeakable for which he was sealed away by Heart of the Forest in Anderweald. Instead of expanding on his background, developing Jailer's character and motivation, Blizzard assigns many already existing and well-established characters of Warcraft as his servants: Mueh'zala, Helya, Kel'Thuzad, Sylvanas... I guess they believe that it should emphasize Zovaal's significance, but in reality it does the opposite. No wonder people still believe in that "leaked concept art" and had a hard time understanding that Jailer's model was for The Jailer.

Shadowlands Launch Trailer Still Jailer. Taken from Blizzard.

And Mueh'zala is someone who I want to focus on a bit in-depth as I believe that originally, in whatever expansion Shadowlands was at first, Mueh'zala was supposed to be its main antagonist. It becomes apparent after you look at everything we have. Just remove Jailer being behind him, and we get much more interesting antagonist for the story:

• The real loa of the dead who turned Bwonsamdi into another one.

• He was the spirit that made a deal with Odyn and allowing his to look into Shadowlands and then had some business with Helya.

• Mueh'zala originally debuted in Traveler: The Spiral Path, but his role was scrapped for The Shining Blade. Possibly due to changes in Shadowlands.

• He whispered Vol'jin to make Sylvanas Warchief of the Horde.

• At this point, I assume that Galakrond's corruption will be credited as another deed of the Jailer (even though Tyr blames himself for this), Mueh'zala could've been very well involved in that as well.

Unlike Zovaal, Mueh'zala feels like an actual force to be reckoned with. The one who gets the job done personally instead of getting credit for other character's deeds because Blizzard said so. This way, antagonist is actually connected to the story of expansion. Zovaal is just there as one of many reasons for people to not care about all this nonsense.

Humiliated Priestess.

I have no idea what is Blizzard's intentions when it comes to Tyrande Whisperwind. Night Warrior supposed to be this scary and angry avatar of Elune, but you just don't see that. You know show-and-tell principle? Blizzard clearly don't as they only tell about Night Warrior. 

"Dark Abduction" cinematic could've showed how Tyrande destroyed those Val'kyr copycats, but instead we get Shandris talking about how "the power she displayed, the ferocity she unleashed, something about it was... troubling." It would've been nice to actually show that, but I guess Anduin's idiotic hijacking and Genn's scream were more important for a comedic effect... or whatever they actually planned.

It quickly became known that Nathanos will be killed by Tyrande and another cinematic would show us that. I thought that they saved demonstration of Night Warrior's powers for that one, but... Oh boys, if anything, "For Teldrassil" showed Tyrande as powerless and miserable edgy girl. Lunar eclipse is nothing special, if you remember Moonstone from Warcraft 3. Illidan's cosplay is out-of-place and gets worse when Nathanos actually fights back for some time. Starfall was always a thing for Priestess of the Moon. Then Nathanos's dialogue just makes fun of her, as if that's Blizzard or someone specifically wanted to achieve it. You would've thought that this cinematic should show how cool Tyrande is, but, if anything, Nathanos just successfully trolled her.

Tyrande Whisperwind from "For Teldrassil" cinematic.

And then later on, in the game itself you never see Tyrande use her powers. Maybe I'm missing something, but tried to look at everything and all I've seen was just dead bodies left behind and nothing special when you actually catch up with Tyrande: only some random AOE effects that doesn't really look like she's overwhelmed with power, and it breaks through. There's no sense of dread from Night Warrior's powers.

Danuser and his True Talent.

Since I've mentioned Nathanos before, I want to say that I wouldn't bring up that screenshot. You know what I'm talking about. I could've made some "Nathanos" jokes here and there, but I feel like it would be lame, wrong, and it's just not necessary. At the end, this is criticism and analysis from me, not mocking Steve for the sake of it since he's in the position that was once taken by Chris Metzen.

He likes to give a lot of interviews related to story/lore, and I want to take a closer look at one of them to describe how "quantity over quality" approach is used here to strengthen the false sense of expanded lore that actually doesn't exist. Usually I try to provide a proper quotes, but not this time. I'll take Lorekeeper's interview from September 26, 2020, and you can see why I don't want to include quotes from it in here: those are huge. And that's a part of the problem: when Steve was asked about what happens to a soul from Shadowlands if person gets raised from the dead, and he avoided it by talking about things we already knew. Answers like that just boil your head, no matter if you're into story/lore or not as in both cases you receive a lot of useless information and that overload creates an illusion of "deep lore" in eyes of some people because they didn't understand anything.

Now, let's examine some of Steve's words more specifically. Back on August 26, 2020, one of the players noticed that Garrosh's famous "Watch your clever mouth, bitch!" phrase was censored in Shadowlands Beta. Same thing happened with Lord Godfrey's quote from Shadowfang Keep, but they never addressed it directly. Anyway, here's Danuser's initial response and notice how passive-aggressive it is:

"I make no apologies for removing the word. Everyone, of course, is entitiled to their own opinion. But we felt it was time for it to go, and it's not coming back."

Then he went on to explain this decision in more detail and, I kid you not, Danuser's wording here was much more compassionate (still a bit aggressive though) and said how it was done after their team member played that part of a game with a kid... Let me remind you that World of Warcraft is a 12+ game and if kid was younger than that, I think they should've asked that developer some questions. Not to mention that in today's age kids learn a lot of nasty words very early now. So I'm just not buying this excuse because I believe that it's just that, but that's not the point.

Alright, this part might be my favorite as I was very lucky to find it. In the past, Steve Danuser had a personal blog called "Mobhunter" and it stopped existing somewhere in 2016, I believe. Gladly for you and me, it's saved on Internet Archive, and we can get an insight into his work philosophy. In "Quests As Kindling", he says something that immediately got my attention:

"I think the role of the content designer should be to provide compelling hooks for player storytelling. And by compelling, I mean both interesting and well-executed. Players should be drawn in by the quest and incentivized to undertake it, but the quest itself should be mere manipulation to get players interacting. It might be through cooperation, competition, or some kind of symbiotic relationship where both sides benefit in different ways."

When you think about it, that's exactly what's going on with Shadowlands and I highlighted these words for a reason. Since Legion and Battle for Azeroth, Blizzard heavily relied on theorycrafting when it comes to story/lore by manipulating players and creating an interaction between those types of people who enjoy this type of thing. Danuser wants them to make sense of whatever gibberish they put out there while pretending that there's a great plan that Blizzard follows. 

Then they feed them with "clues" that has some loose meaning to them, and it just keeps these lore fans overloaded by theories, which on itself serve as a form of self-entertaiment and don't require much work from story team. Remember how Azshara had to directly quote Il'gynoth to make sure that players still believe that speculations are important?

It doesn't end on just in-game material. Same interview are also playing a big role in this game. In ScreenRant interview, Steve Danuser admired those players: saying how players notice every detail and specifically praised them for noticing the shattering of Uther's soul in Afterlives that happens right in front of a screen and has distinct sound effects. They worried it was "too subtle"... Reuse of art material for Maldraxxus episode was presented as a "reference to earlier cinematic".

And you know what's the craziest part? It works. Players keep falling for it and praize Blizzard for manipulating them. That symbiote between people, content creators like Bellular (no offense to him) and Steve Danuser with his team reminds me too much of conspiracy theorists, ufology and shows like Ancient Aliens. I don't like that analogy and that's one of the reasons I'm not a fan of story/lore theories nowadays: sometimes they can be good, but scenarios like this are just toxic.

Conclusion.

Don't get me started about World of Warcraft's Twitter account with Lo-Fi things.

Why do I even bother with it? Because I still like Warcraft. Even though I started with World of Warcraft, over time I've realized how scuffed story and lore were in this franchise and, especially, in MMORPG. And I think my issue comes from me being a casual player. I always enjoyed the gameplay part of WoW and can't recall a specific moment when I had a bad time with it. 

I wasn't a raider or anything that and instead was more invested into narrative and all that stuff. Likewise, I think that the vast majority of player base is the opposite of it: they're more sensitive when it comes to gameplay, but don't care about story and will take everything. That's why this Blizzard's strategy works: they have those theories under full control and "Gameplay Andys" who know no better and just don't care.

The only reason I'm somewhat keeping track of Shadowlands is because I want to be fair and judge the full picture when it finally ends. That doesn't stop me from criticizing it along the way, but keeps me sad because of current state of Warcraft where it loses its potential and other things that made it enjoyable and appealing to me. It becomes a generic, boring and dull mixture of Disney cartoon and anime that's, paradoxically, is appealing to a lot of people.