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Shadowlands Developer Update Livestream - July 8th
World of Warcraft Executive Producer John Hight and Game Director Ion Hazzikostas sit down at home to share details about Shadowlands and provide a look at some of the latest content now in development. This post will update with the stream.


  • Shadowlands will definitely be releasing this fall.
  • The Shadowlands Physical Collector's Edition will have a reflective surface.
  • There will be a full-color art book, covenant pin set, soundtrack, and mousepad in the physical collector's edition.
  • Shadowlands will enter beta NEXT WEEK with the release of the Maw to test as well.
  • The Alpha has been a true Alpha. It is an evolution of feedback and sometimes new builds are only 5 days old.
  • Torghast will be completely ungated and have no currency system to run it.
  • The character artists are listening to feedback and wish lists for further customization.
  • Beta will be feature complete, but work still remains.
  • You will be able to level to 60 in beta and test endgame.
  • Beta will send out a lot more invites! More will come out over the summer as well.
  • Endgame in Shadowlands
    • You will choose your covenant at max level which will unlock a lot of new endgame systems.
    • Form Soulbinds - Bind your soul to a member of your covenant and unlock new abilities with a new talent tree that you can customize.
    • Empty slots in the tree will be for conduits. These are similar to relics in Legion. They are spec specific and will drop from all content. There are types that are utility, defensive, and throughput.
    • Conduits are customizable and you can switch them out for a small cost.
    • You will gain renown with your covenant to unlock new features, rewards, and cosmetics, and such. This is done by collecting anima. This is not an open-ended grind. There is also robust catch up systems for it.
    • Each covenant has a sanctum which functions like the class halls in Legion. Each one also has upgrades that can be earned through gaining anima and rescuing souls from the Maw.
    • Every covenant has a unique transportation network for their respective zones.
    • Every covenant will also have wards you can activate to restore the flow on anima in the zone. Restoring these will activate quests and other activities for the area. Eventually you can unlock these permanently. It will also physically change the area.
    • Each covenant has a scouting map called Adventures which is the new iteration of the mission table. It no longer has a central importance, but it's an outlet for storytelling and offline progression. It is turn based and you will level up your soulbinds, create parties, and send them out on missions for loot.
    • The mobile app will support Adventures.
    • Each covenant also has a unique feature:
      • Venthyr - Ember Court. You will have a self-contained mini game to seek out guests and set up a party, play through it in real time, and maximize the happiness of your guests for rewards.
      • Kyrian - Path of Ascension. You inhabit the consciousness of one of your soulbinds and take on trials to recruit powerful allies. It is focused on combat.
      • Necrolords - Abomination Factory. You can build fleshwork creatures to be the perfect housing for a soul in need of a physical form. You can adventure with each of these unique souls out in the world.
      • Night Fae - Queen's Conservatory. You will tend to a soul garden, similar to the farm in Pandaria. You will nurture souls back to life.
    • The Theater of Pain Dungeon will be available soon. It takes place during an important battle royale event. It is a non-linear dungeon with different choices to progress.
    • Early on in our adventures in the Maw will will find Vinari, one of the only souls in the Maw that doesn't want to kill us. She will improve our experience in the Maw and help us with Torghast.
    • There will be a lot of discover-able gameplay in the Maw. You won't just be able to bring up the map and see world quests. Everything you do is under the eyes of the Jailer and you are not welcome here. Eventually you will have to retreat after gaining too much ire of the Jailer.
    • Castle Nathria raid testing will begin later this month.
    • Shadowlands Mythic+ testing will also start later this month. They want early feedback so they can make sure they can improve the experience before launch.
    • The new seasonal affix will be revealed later this month as well.
    • Legendary Runecrafting will be testable soon as well. They are similar to Legion legendaries but the way they are obtained is controlled by the player instead of RNG.
    • You will find a runesmith jailed in the bowels of Torghast. This smith wields the power to forge items similar in power to the Helm of Domination or Frostmourne. They will make the legendary slot of your choice with enough currency earned through Torghast.
    • A lot of the legendary abilities are influenced by old set bonuses or legendaries that were popular.
    • Covenant Campaign testing will be available soon as well. These are unique story campaigns linked to your covenant that will unlock rewards and cosmetics.
    • There will be focused PvP testing soon as well. They want to have the pacing of PvP fleshed out better going into the expansion.
    • They also want to test the pacing of character progression. Characters will probably be wiped at the end of the month and character copies enabled.
    • The months ahead are focused on polish, iteration, feedback response, and tuning.
    • Tuning is the last thing that the team does during beta. They look for outliers that are out-of-whack right away, but make sure the conceptualizations are there before they dial them in.
    • Stuff that looks over or underpowered on the Alpha right not have not been tuned accordingly yet.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Shadowlands Developer Update Livestream - July 8th started by Stoy View original post
Comments 190 Comments
  1. Softbottom's Avatar
    what a fucking tool.
  1. Nebron's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nak88 View Post
    If you thought BfA was terrible...SL will make BfA look as decent....
    And the reason is...
  1. Malix Farwin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tesshin20 View Post
    It's not like anyone cares if you are going to play or not.
    Its not like i care if you or anyone else cares if i am going to play it or not. I gave my thoughts thats it, if you do not like them or give really didnt give a crap then why even respond to them.
  1. Relapses's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Justpassing View Post
    Don't you remember the orc shoulder shrinking? There were international riots about it, and that was just for orcs!
    Man, you just gave me PTSD-style flashbacks ... I found this in my Photobucket from back in 2007.

  1. Unholyground's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Malix Farwin View Post
    So far what ive seen has been a disappointment but i will say very informative. i know very early on i will be skipping out on this xpac.
    They are giving us player agency back and getting rid of horrible RNG, single best thing they have done in like 4 expansions lol.
  1. Lorgar Aurelian's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by keymil View Post
    Do I really have to just move into some abandoned cave deep in the mountains for a chance of not being exposed to all this political stuff?
    Pretty much ya, if you want to ignore the plight of others you need to make an effort as more caring people won’t turn a blind eye just to coddle you.
  1. Tesshin20's Avatar
    All the covenant stuff seems very insteresting. 4 different campaigns and all the covenant unique stuff offers a lot replayability.

    Looks great so far.
  1. Malix Farwin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nak88 View Post
    If you thought BfA was terrible...SL will make BfA look as decent....
    Yea pretty much the impression i am getting from SL so far.
  1. Castia's Avatar
    Not sure what I expected but I was hoping for more than that. Very little new info and barely anything to show off.

    Can’t help but feel a bit disappointed although Shadowlands is starting to look pretty good.
  1. schwarzkopf's Avatar
    Looking forward to SL, so far looks way better than anything since LK.

    Just wish there was a release date.
  1. Malix Farwin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Unholyground View Post
    They are giving us player agency back and getting rid of horrible RNG, single best thing they have done in like 4 expansions lol.
    Class design is still being cropped up by borrowed power and theres no guarantee that systems like corruption wont come back later into the xpac. So far it just sounds like a better BFA to me.
  1. Unholyground's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by keymil View Post
    Do I really have to just move into some abandoned cave deep in the mountains for a chance of not being exposed to all this political stuff?
    You have no Avatar, so your posts and opinions don't matter.
  1. Djaye's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Unholyground View Post
    They are giving us player agency back and getting rid of horrible RNG, single best thing they have done in like 4 expansions lol.
    if you dont think Horrible RNG wont make its way into SL, you havent learned anything from Blizz in the last 10 years...

    where do you people make this delusion up from?
  1. McNeil's Avatar
    Still not very excited for Shadowlands. Some stuff looked good, most is just uninterest (like why they keep bringing back the mission table).

    One of the best things is the new character customisations which they haven't shown more off.
  1. Dakara's Avatar
    I wonder how gated the story will be for each covenant.

    In BFA you needed a 2 Characters to experience the whole story, Horde & Alliance. In SL you’ll need 4, one for each covenant.
  1. Sluvs's Avatar
    I don't really feel the hype for a lot of those features. Also there are to many features.

    Sanctums, Renown, Anima Chanelling, Blood court(and similar), Soulbinds etc.

    There seems to be too much happening here.
  1. Unholyground's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Malix Farwin View Post
    Class design is still being cropped up by borrowed power and theres no guarantee that systems like corruption wont come back later into the xpac. So far it just sounds like a better BFA to me.
    No it is far different in many many ways, the borrowed power will stay each expansion which is shitty but they would really need to work at making a new permanent character progressions system and I doubt they had time to make one for Shadowlands. I do wish they would make one that we kept.
  1. Ghostile's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Dakara View Post
    I wonder how gated the story will be for each covenant.

    In BFA you needed a 2 Characters to experience the whole story, Horde & Alliance. In SL you’ll need 4, one for each covenant.
    Don't you do the covenant stories while leveling?
  1. Djaye's Avatar
    and with this preview, SL looks to be the same ole crap blizz has shoveled out for the last 8 years. reskins, renames and new paint wont cover up the same crappy game designs they keep regurgitating. its like they cut their team back more every single expansion...
  1. lazaros742's Avatar
    No release date... no pre patch date. Annoying.

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