Personal opinion: Shadowlands will be a bad expansion.

[Velerios]

Don't misunderstand me: It will be definitively be better than gutter trash of BfA, but i think that Shadowlands might probably be a bad expansion; around the same as Cata. Because really, i feel a sense of cata-vibes right now:

1.) No connected Zones. That's one of the really bad things that is a repeat of Cata, and to a part also part of BfA: Instead of having one connected land mass, we have 5 different "isles", disconnecting us from them. So we have a main hub like in cata with portals to the different zones. It disconnect people with the land mass and the zones. Even worse: in cata at least they were connected with the continent, here we don't even have this. So for me the zone design is actually worse than Cata.

2.) Absolutely no features. So what we get are new bloated factions, something like lazy order halls, just as they did it with tier sets (that are not returning); instead of doing it for all classes, they rather broke it down to 4 factions. And the rest: The maw and the tower of the damned are both diablo-esque greater rifts, nothing more, nothing less as far as it is known right now. But since the zone-design describe the maw as quite a dead zone, i'm not really looking forward for this being the endgame-zone compared to suramar for example.

3.) No new classes - One of the most stupid things i hear on this forums are: blizzard needs to balance old classes rather than adding new ones: Sorry, but that is utterly, utterly bullshit. If blizzard for example wouldn't revamp classes on every occassion, making working classes where most people are happy (shadow priest pre-voidform) replace with total crap and then prune the hell out of them just because 2-3 players complained that there are too many buttons, and try to trim classes towards PvP and e-sports, then we wouldn't have this issues. Sorry, but thinking that nowadays adding a new class and balancing existing ones are not possible is totally idiotic. It's lazyness (and saving money) that makes blizzard not releasing new classes, not that they haven't the ability to balance 13 instead of 12 classes. And most of all: balance towards PvE, but do not try to make every class-spec performe the same in PvP. WoW was, is and will always be mostly a PvE-Game, only in times where blizzard focused mostly on it, especially not balancing towards e-sport-gamers and towards the upper 0.1% of the playerbase, WoW was the most successful.

4.) Zone design: Maybe it's just me, but from the videos i've seen, Bastion is a really, really underwhelming zone. Maybe it's because it is so unfinished, maybe the bad lighting (that is hopefully by far not finished) or maybe the bad textures and models, but right now it seems like a very, very bad zone and underwhelmingly small too. We know nothing about the rest (except the maw from the videos with the jailor), so it might hopefully get better, but Bastion, the first zone we will go to will really be quite a bad zone.

As said before: Will it be trash? No, but still i think that shadowlands will be in worst case a bad, in best case an underwhelming expansion. Just my personal opinion.

[MrLachyG]

1. who cares? also, it's nothing like Cata - Cata zones were spread over two continents - Shadowlands has a single continent featuring zones that are seperated like islands but getting to and from will be easy. I don't see why you class this as an issue

2. there are plenty of features, just because you personally don't like them doesn't negate their existence.

3. we currently have the same amount of classes as we do races (including allied races). Blizz have said that they add classes based on the expansion, nothing fits this expansion that we don't have already.

4. were you at Blizzcon? did you play through Bastion? have you played the Alpha or the Beta? no? then you don't know what the zone design is like. sure, you've seen a quick overview but unless you've played it then yeah you kinda can't judge it yet.

[Mysterymask]

I kinda feel its going to be what every expansion has been.....

Everyones going to say it sucks.....they are going to say its the worst expansion after the first 3 weeks of the expansion launching
Afterwards BFA is going to start to look good in comparison ...like past expansions almost always do....I mean we even have people singing Warlords of Draenor's praises lately....

All the while everyone is going to bitch about it but yet still play it cause let's face it...Blizz can make an expansion about clowns raping puppies and yall will still play the hell out of it, bitching THE ENTIRE WAY about the fact that you have to grind so much puppy tounges to get the 5 ilvl upgrade your GM is making you get....

[Caerule]

The expansion is certainly in a very early stage. But the only point I can give the OP right now is the disconnected zones. Which we don't know 100% certain how that will work yet. I dunno, I never minded in Cata, but others did. And given this expansion will have dailies in the zones, maybe that could get more annoying? We'll see!

Otherwise, it looks good to me. It's giving me TBC vibes, not Cata vibes.

(Of course, we can't really judge the expansion as a whole, until 3 years from now, after its final patch has dropped.)

[Mirishka]

Don't misunderstand me: It will be definitively be better than gutter trash of BfA, but i think that Shadowlands might probably be a bad expansion; around the same as Cata. Because really, i feel a sense of cata-vibes right now:

1.) No connected Zones. snip

2.) Absolutely no features. snip

3.) No new classes - snip

4.) Zone design: snip.

As said before: Will it be trash? No, but still i think that shadowlands will be in worst case a bad, in best case an underwhelming expansion. Just my personal opinion.

1. Zone layout has literally nothing in common with Cata. Baseless.

2. Stop confusing 'features I don't like' with 'no features'. Also baseless.

3. While I'm irked we don't get Tinkers (a lot of BFA stuff hinted at that), the reality is that any class we got with Shadowlands would have been death-based, which would almost certainly cannibalized abilities from DKs, much like DHs/DKs got stuff locks used to have.

4. Complaining about zone design/lighting from the snippet we saw at Blizzcon (barely an alpha build) reeks of looking for something else to complain about.

[Darththeo]

3.) No new classes - One of the most stupid things i hear on this forums are: blizzard needs to balance old classes rather than adding new ones: Sorry, but that is utterly, utterly bullshit. If blizzard for example wouldn't revamp classes on every occassion, making working classes where most people are happy (shadow priest pre-voidform) replace with total crap and then prune the hell out of them just because 2-3 players complained that there are too many buttons, and try to trim classes towards PvP and e-sports, then we wouldn't have this issues. Sorry, but thinking that nowadays adding a new class and balancing existing ones are not possible is totally idiotic. It's lazyness (and saving money) that makes blizzard not releasing new classes, not that they haven't the ability to balance 13 instead of 12 classes. And most of all: balance towards PvE, but do not try to make every class-spec performe the same in PvP. WoW was, is and will always be mostly a PvE-Game, only in times where blizzard focused mostly on it, especially not balancing towards e-sport-gamers and towards the upper 0.1% of the playerbase, WoW was the most successful.

Knowing the tone, what new class fits the tone of the expansion? WotLK storyline was specifically designed with Death Knights being playable in mind. Legion was designed with Demon Hunters in mind. What class could fit the expansions that doesn't lead to pruning another class? It has to be a death based class.

So Necromancer? How do you make Necromancer distinct from DK? Or what other class would be? Tinker makes no sense in the expansion content. Dark Ranger is really not a class, despite efforts to make it seem like it could be one.

[cuafpr]

the no new race or class i think will hurt it... I know it does for me personally.

[Aucald]

My main criticism of Shadowlands is that it feels a bit thin on the ground and lacking in content, although that may be due to its relative newness and the lack of exploration of its content thus far - it was, after all, just announced. I found the BlizzCon preview of it to be interesting but remarkably threadbare, but that could of course change as it is further developed and iterated on.

I don't like prejudging expansions on the face of it, though; so I reserve my final opinion for when I can actually get my mitts on it and begin playing it.

[Dystemper]

Its will be bad because this dev team , the suits running Blizzard and Activision dont care about making a quality game any more, and it shows. You can see from Employee tweets that the morale at the company is pretty low and the only thing they are focused on is just how long you are logged in. They have already said no major changes to how the classes play. That right there is a big factor as to why shadowlands will suck. If the classes are not fun to play then the rest does not matter .

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My main criticism of Shadowlands is that it feels a bit thin on the ground and lacking in content, although that may be due to its relative newness and the lack of exploration of its content thus far - it was, after all, just announced. I found the BlizzCon preview of it to be interesting but remarkably threadbare, but that could of course change as it is further developed and iterated on.

I don't like prejudging expansions on the face of it, though; so I reserve my final opinion for when I can actually get my mitts on it and begin playing it.

It feels very thin, and the Blizzcon reveal was one of the most sparse expansion reveals I can ever recall . To me it is feeling very rushed , and slapped together . I dont feel any hype or excitement from Blizzard about it at all.

[Reinaerd]

How on earth can we make an informed call or content yay/nay, outside of same basic zone previews and a mechanic or two, we know next to nothing.

[bison91]

1. who cares? also, it's nothing like Cata - Cata zones were spread over two continents - Shadowlands has a single continent featuring zones that are seperated like islands but getting to and from will be easy. I don't see why you class this as an issue

2. there are plenty of features, just because you personally don't like them doesn't negate their existence.

3. we currently have the same amount of classes as we do races (including allied races). Blizz have said that they add classes based on the expansion, nothing fits this expansion that we don't have already.

4. were you at Blizzcon? did you play through Bastion? have you played the Alpha or the Beta? no? then you don't know what the zone design is like. sure, you've seen a quick overview but unless you've played it then yeah you kinda can't judge it yet.

what features are these?

[Beet]

1. who cares? also, it's nothing like Cata - Cata zones were spread over two continents - Shadowlands has a single continent featuring zones that are seperated like islands but getting to and from will be easy. I don't see why you class this as an issue

2. there are plenty of features, just because you personally don't like them doesn't negate their existence.

3. we currently have the same amount of classes as we do races (including allied races). Blizz have said that they add classes based on the expansion, nothing fits this expansion that we don't have already.

4. were you at Blizzcon? did you play through Bastion? have you played the Alpha or the Beta? no? then you don't know what the zone design is like. sure, you've seen a quick overview but unless you've played it then yeah you kinda can't judge it yet.

Not that I disagree with you on any points but your #4 is horrible reasoning. Really bad reasoning. This is an excuse used every single expansion. Literally dating back to TBC. Some people will say you can’t judge stuff or give feedback based on videos. Then when beta/alpha is out they’ll say don’t judge based off this it’s not finished guys! So then finally it will launch and it will be too late to give any feedback whatsoever on most issues. In fact then people will say you should have made these points earlier. It happens every single time.

The best time to give feedback is the earliest possible time.

With that said I think OP is wrong on many levels. In fact he’s wrong about Cata too. Cata was considered a hit until 4.3 for one. The only ones unhappy early on were people who got so accustomed to WotLK easy mode random heroics in LFD that they were not prepared or willing to have actual challenges in heroics with Cataclysms launch ones. Which is a shame because those heroics were the best designed five mans Blizzard ever did. Super fun and rewarding as hell. And the zones being the way they were was fine as it fit the story. Just as Shadowlands ones do too.

[MrLachyG]

How on earth can we make an informed call or content yay/nay, outside of same basic zone previews and a mechanic or two, we know next to nothing.

pretty stock standard for this forum

[Shakana]

My main criticism of Shadowlands is that it feels a bit thin on the ground and lacking in content, although that may be due to its relative newness and the lack of exploration of its content thus far - it was, after all, just announced. I found the BlizzCon preview of it to be interesting but remarkably threadbare, but that could of course change as it is further developed and iterated on.

I don't like prejudging expansions on the face of it, though; so I reserve my final opinion for when I can actually get my mitts on it and begin playing it.

That's only because they didn't start working on it properly when they announced it. They made the concept, created some design to present the convenants, created starting zone, but even the talents, all that, were still bfa. They have it all basically on works and powerpointed as if they were showing a brainstorm they had. It's literally too soon to have a good or bad opinion. You can only enjoy it by the theme, but as for content and gameplay we can't give much of an opinion just yet.

[MrLachyG]

Not that I disagree with you on any points but your #4 is horrible reasoning. Really bad reasoning. This is an excuse used every single expansion. Literally dating back to TBC. Some people will say you can’t judge stuff or give feedback based on videos. Then when beta/alpha is out they’ll say don’t judge based off this it’s not finished guys! So then finally it will launch and it will be too late to give any feedback whatsoever on most issues. In fact then people will say you should have made these points earlier. It happens every single time.

The best time to give feedback is the earliest possible time.

With that said I think OP is wrong on many levels. In fact he’s wrong about Cata too. Cata was considered a hit until 4.3 for one. The only ones unhappy early on were people who got so accustomed to WotLK easy mode random heroics in LFD that they were not prepared or willing to have actual challenges in heroics with Cataclysms launch ones. Which is a shame because those heroics were the best designed five mans Blizzard ever did. Super fun and rewarding as hell. And the zones being the way they were was fine as it fit the story. Just as Shadowlands ones do too.

dude the alpha and beta isn't even out yet. OP is basing his opinion on watching videos on the earliest version of a single zone.

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what features are these?

Covenants, the new abilities that come with them, the design your own legendary, an endless dungeon. and that is just what we know about. there are probably lots of things we don't, which is why OP's thread is not valid. he may well be right; it might be a bad expansion but he can't know that right now

[Lollis]

The 'no features' thing amuses me to no extent.
Think of the features we have had through the years:

Garrisons
Warfronts
Island Expeditions
Artifact Weapons
Azerite Gear / Neck

There comes a point where you have to say, look these things haven't worked, they spent too much dev time trying to get multiple things going right and ended up making them mediocre.
I'd much rather have less of these 'features' and for everything else to be better.

We had years of expansions basically being new raids, new zones, new quests, and then maybe one extra thing. That was it and it did perfectly fine.
Now everyone expects there to be some massively special expansion feature that ultimately ends up failing and is gone again the next expansion.

Do the story right. Do the raids right. Do the dungeons right. Do the PvP balancing right.
Only after that should they be thinking about adding a 'you can now learn to walk on your hands!!' pseudo-feature that only lasts 2 years.

[Tradu]

I kinda feel its going to be what every expansion has been.....

Everyones going to say it sucks.....they are going to say its the worst expansion after the first 3 weeks of the expansion launching
Afterwards BFA is going to start to look good in comparison ...like past expansions almost always do....I mean we even have people singing Warlords of Draenor's praises lately....

All the while everyone is going to bitch about it but yet still play it cause let's face it...Blizz can make an expansion about clowns raping puppies and yall will still play the hell out of it, bitching THE ENTIRE WAY about the fact that you have to grind so much puppy tounges to get the 5 ilvl upgrade your GM is making you get....

It's almost as if that's been the trend since the game peaked in MoP, every expansion since has been worse than the previous one.

[grexly75]

How on earth can we make an informed call or content yay/nay, outside of same basic zone previews and a mechanic or two, we know next to nothing.

Unfortunately this is MMO-C WoW forums where people will instantly judge something with what little information there is.. Has pretty much always been like this with previous expansions..

[Kyphael]

Too early to tell but I like the concepts introduced between the four covenants and what they represent thematically. My only gripe remains that the covenant system itself won't be enough to keep my vested interest over the long haul and I never stick around just for the story. I didn't even hate the cinematic as much as everyone (I've known Bolvar was a chump the moment I saw his dopey face at Wrathgate), but to me getting no new allied races (presumably) or new class really guts it for me in terms of replay value. My first introductions to WoW expansion announcements were "look, new race and class!" The first time I didn't get that in WoD, I unsubbed after two months. Garrisons wee boring though. The story of Death I might stick around, but with no new races or classes to play with, I don't foresee myself playing Shadowlands for 3 years just to mess with covenants and do LFR. The story I can easily follow on Youtube. We'll see, the preview was bare bones as everyone said.

[Levogames]

Meh if that's true we all can say welcome to FF14 Shadowbringers.