The Maw 1.0
With Shadowlands, World of Warcraft wanted to show what “life after” looked like for Azeroth.
Depending on how a soul behaved in life, it was assigned to one of the various realms of the Shadowlands. Righteous souls might end up in Bastion, while sinners were more likely to end up in Revendreth.
And the very worst souls ended up in the Maw. It was essentially the hell of World of Warcraft.
The Maw had several mechanics and design ideas that led many players to think: I’m going here exactly once and then never again.
Because the Maw had multiple restrictions in its original version:
- You could neither fly nor ride normal mounts. Movement was only possible on foot.
- You could only stay in the Maw for a limited time, as the more enemies you defeated, the more the “eye of the jailer” observed you, throwing your character into increasingly severe problems until you were forced to flee (or simply die).
- The entire environment was desolate and barren, visually oppressive and simply unpleasant.
This design also meant that you could not help friends and guildmates in the Maw if you had already been there that day:
“Can you help me with the elite quest in the Maw?”
“Sorry, can’t do it, I was there today already.”
This was simply not good game design.
It’s no surprise that the Maw was soon revised in a new patch. However, it did not become much more popular through that.
At least one thing the developers managed well: The Maw in WoW was in its first form an area that was so terrible, so exhausting, and so unpleasant to play that it could be considered a pretty convincing depiction of hell.
Whether one can consider it a success in a video game when an area is so unpopular… is another matter.
