It might not necessarily be lore integrity but you would think with all the possibilities blizzard has at their disposal, they pick Schnottz? Really? So yeah I totally see the OP's point. It's kind of a buzzkill. Lore aside.

Ive also managed to avoid going to Uldum at all on any of my characters on their route to 85. I went and did it on my hunter for the loremaster achievement, and I -hated- every single bit of the pop culture Indy references. I loathed it. Here and there references to me are fine, but to dedicate so much to it was a pain, when I had such great expectations and high hopes for the zone. I wanted to know what was on the other side of the door in Tanaris that the elite giants were guarding since the day I first discovered it back in Vanilla when I started playing with patch 1.3. The mystery of what was there only became heightened as the other Titan dungeons/areas were released, and I hoped and wished for some beautiful lore.

Now when I go there I only do the Rhamaken stuff and leave Jones in the pit to rot.

I understand that people loved it, but I loved the Wrath leadup event and that pissed off a billion people too, so I know that I'm just the polar opposite of you on this one here. You're allowed to like it just as much as I'm allowed to wish it would all die in Deathwing's fire.

While Uldum wasn't a BAD zone, per-say, I agree that they overdid it with the Indiana Jones reference. While I love Indiana Jones, and, as a whole, the chain was cool, there were a lot of quests to it, which just made it drag on. Also, the fact that more than half the zone is dedicated to a REFERENCE is sad. It reminds me of when I got braces as a kid, and couldn't chew food for a week. I got to eat ice cream for meals simple because I was able to consume it! And while the idea SOUNDED awesome, I got sick of ice cream very, VERY fast. It was too much of a good thing, and that just ruined it.

I honestly would have preferred that they continued Ramkahen's storyline. Maybe then I wouldn't have been left with a sense of relief when the zone was finally over.

I think some people need to realize that whether they like it or not, Warcraft *does* have a serious story behind it. You may not like it and that's fine, but some people do. Just go read a KYL article or two and check out the comments. Levity and drama can happily coexist in a story.

And I hate it when people trivialize things by saying WoW can never be taken seriously because we have cow-people and space-goats, etc. I think just about any fantasy story could be made to sound undramatic and silly if described a certain way (and it's fun to poke fun at things you like by seeing the silly side sometimes). I, for one, quite enjoy a tale about a certain hairy-footed midget and his gardner trying to destroy some jewelry. Oh and that one where a grown man dresses up like a bat and fights a clown and a penguin with his parents' money.

Of course I admit Warcraft has more silliness than most stories, but it also still has a Dark Titan trying to burn down the universe with his demonic army to establish what he believes is the proper cosmic paradigm.

I hope that didn't offend anyone. To each their own!

Uldum sucked because:

* I was the sidekick, not the hero
* Helping out the "Nazis" and general racism
* The endless endless slow in-game cutscenes. Mostly with my character "cowering."
If Blizzard wanted cutscenes, animate them like the wrathgate. The in-game cutscenes were terrible and buggy. (The camera was often in the wrong place)

Things good about Uldum:

* Bashing pigmies daily. The quickest, easiest daily EVAR.
* Gnome-apocolypse (should have been the daily)
* The Brann joke at the end, should you have stomached your way throughout the zone.

That said, not looking forward to ever doing the zone again.

I had a lot of fun in Uldum doing both the Jones quests and the cat people quests. I felt like I was actually playing in a cinematic adventure in both of them and progressing a story that didn't have me feeling like I was just doing meaningless tasks to get to the story.

And, though I know many upon many will disagree with this, I had a lot of fun in Vashj also. It was something different than all the other zones and, even though there were some slow moments, I felt like i was progressing through the story.

Honestly, and I hope I am not the only one to say this, Uldum and Vashj'ir were my two favorite cataclysm zones. Hyjal, Twilight Highlands, and Deepholm just felt like all the other zones in the world of warcraft.

And just throwing this out there, I hate questing in Deepholm. And, I HATE that I have to do the entire zone just so i can get Therazane rep...I think Blizzard did that on purpose...

Grovin: "Let's not go getting all 'lore integrity' now."

Let's look at your points:

See, the tauren, worgen, and draenei are all races that are part of the lore on Azeroth. Just because they are absurd in this world doesn't mean they are an absurdity that breaks lore integrity on Azeroth (well, the draenei/eradar thing notwithstanding). Still, I don't play tauren only because they are cow people. That may affect the decision, but the lore plays a large part too. Well, except the hunter I'm leveling happy to know it will always be a "cow with gun" soon.

Again, elves living in trees are not a break in lore integrity in many fantasy settings, although the stump of one tree being big enough other trees are growing in it is pushing a bit.

In a world of magic (e.g. Azeroth), I have seen a bow hit many targets at once using magic (which is probably why hunters used to use mana).

Stabbing people with a fish is just silly, but really, that fish isn't BiS for very long. Now I will give you that this game breaks the fourth wall, so to speak, to introduce a little entertainment and remind us that this is a game.

Now, as Daniel pointed out, it is not that there is a Harrison Jones quest in Uldum, but rather that Uldum IS a Harrison Jones quest. I learned little to nothing about the Ramakhen. Heck, there is only like one daily to earn rep outside of wearing a tabard.

I think Blizzard knows they overdid it a bit, but felt they couldn't pass up the opportunity or something. They started with nuking the fridge, so I was sure this would be ugly before it got better. Then it ended with Brann Bronzebeard, as if they realized "woah, our joke is about to take credit for everything and none of our explorers are even around." Too little, too late.

There was so much potential with the zone too. PvP resources (similar to Vashj'ir), Explorers/Reliquary tension (they could have even had us help Harrison in their name and I would have liked it better), or even just doing quests that let us learn a little of why we are helping these cat people, all of this would have been better than following Harrison around as if we are just peons or lost puppies and he is someone awesome. Haven't we bailed him out before and already knew he was a mockery of his reference that couldn't take care of himself? Why take orders from him now?

I did enjoy some of the quests and I did like Uldum overall, but not enough to quest through as I'm leveling. It just feels like a side quest with no reason to be there, even though there is a very good reason to be there that we just don't know about until we slog through the whole zone. I mean after Vashj'ir where we start to fight Horde/Alliance and end up helping a bunch of shaman, or Hyjal where Ragnaros is burninating the countryside as we bring back the ancients to help us stop him, and Deepholme where we are literally holding up the world until we put the building blocks back together, and before going to Twilight Highlands to take on the black dragonflight and the whole point of the arms race, between all that we have Uldum which will always be a Harrison Jones gag because the ultimate point (helping the Ramakhen stop their coup and saving the world from re-Origination) will always be overshadowed by (not just overshadowed, but hidden in a "I didn't know why I was here until the very end" way by) an entire series of quests designed to remind us of a character in a movie completely unrelated to the lore of the game.

I think a lot of peoples' problem, as well, as mine, is that this zone is the only one in the entire game that we are afraid for a large chunk of the quests.

Our characters have fought a zombie and a demon army, been to distant planets, fought Old Gods and survived the Cataclysm. Now we're scared of some explosives?


Harrison, buddy, we've been dealing with goblin engineers since the game began.

my only problem with uldum was being second fiddle to harrison jones, I wouldn't have had a problem being bran's sidekick for the zone, but being sidekick to the comic relief was kinda sucky.

other than I loved the Indiana Jones references and laughed with "NINE NINE NINE" every time I've done it (main and 2 alts)

but dieferent people yackidish mackidish blah blah blah

Personally, I think my brother put it best.

"If Blizzard weren't so good at detecting these things, I would have just installed a levelling Bot. Let it do the zone while I watch my Indy box-set, it would have been much the same experience."

I didn't mind the Indiana Jones references myself and tend to enjoy Uldum, but I do wish the Ramkahen hadn't felt like guest stars in their own zone. That quest line deserved to be more epic, and they did perhaps take the easier path with the Indiana Jones storyline.

And we learned from doing the Uldum Harrison Jones quest line that Brann Bronzebeard is Harrison's dad, though I've never seen anyone on this site or in the forums mention it.

Uldum exists solely so my Tauren can ride a camel. That is all.

My biggest disappointment about Uldum? The near-complete lack of Al'akir and Skywall lore. Al'akir and his elementals are supposed to be a major part of Uldum. It's the "air" zone of the expansion. Hyjal is fire, Vashj'ir is water, Deepholm is earth and they all show it often. Uldum has the air motif very briefly at the beginning then abandons it after the one city is buried in sand. The whole reason Ramkahen was hesitating to go to war was fear of the air elementals, but they never show up again! Al'akir is permanently dead in lore now and we barely got to interact with him, never got to understand his motives, personality or background.

I'm really, really disappointed. :(

I didn't actually mind the Indiana Jones references that much. What really annoyed ME was the cut scenes every 5 minutes.

I like that they're trying to use more in-game cinematics but enough is enough, Blizzard. Spread them out a bit!