Personal opinion: Shadowlands will be a bad expansion.

[Laqweeta]

But at the very least it's going to be bizarre turboing through 50 levels in areas made for 5-12

I'm not sure on this. It was more of a "wow, never thought this would happen" when I was say level 55 questing in Westfall.

[Mozu]

"Reaction" is one thing. "Predicting the future" is a whole another game. To "react" is to say "I like/don't like this". To "predict the future" is to say "Shadowlands will be a bad expansion.

Disagree here.

Of course no one knows the future, so they (Blizzard) can surprise us -- but that's how predictions work. You make judgments based on information you have, and we have a lot of history with how blizzard does expansions along with plenty of information specific to the expansion to make a good judgment call (i.e. prediction) about its future.

Your post is at odds with itself. You cannot make a "one-hundred percent accurate" estimate based on what you admit being "extremely early on" information:

You're misunderstanding.

I can say it was 100% accurate since I have the power of retrospection now. Of course they didn't know it was accurate at the time, but as it turned out it was. And it was based on early information. Just like now.

[manypillars]

I'm not sure on this. It was more of a "wow, never thought this would happen" when I was say level 55 questing in Westfall.

It's awkward to put it so it's clear. I don't mean questing in Westfall at level 55, but rather going from 10-50 in just BC or Pandaria zones. Things might feel just weird getting 40 levels over the course of 5-7 zones (or 50 in however many leveling zones Shadowlands ends up having).

I also forgot you're supposed to do the new 1-10 island, but I think you get to choose between that and an old starting zone before being free to go where ever you want if I remember/understood right.

[Garymorilix]

Ofc it will be bad.
It can't be anything else.
Cuz if it isn't bad then you are wrong, and you just can't have that can you?

I would love it if doomsaying was a bannable offense. This is getting out of hand.

[mickybrighteyes]

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.

IMO, whether or not zones are physically adjacent to one another or not doesn't matter as usually the zones don't spill over into one another with content usually.

Cata had other issues concerning cut content (obviously cut content at that) and a lot of stagnation with nothing for us to do. WoD had similar issues here as for why it sucked.

Is the linked zones held together with singular breadcrumb quests really that important? I think not.

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.

too soon for this statement and also counters itself... "no features" then proceeds to talk about features?

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.

Your opinion of it being bullshit is rather bullshit. But I think the issue here is statements regarding large scale changes to the existing specs (which have reached a point where they are as separate and different as classes)

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.

I don't see the point for two points on zone design. Also this further still looks like you're jumping the gun trying to make a point that doesn't matter.

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.

I think you should probably wait to see more official leaks before deciding anything... and maybe take a look back at why other expansions fell flat.

[Alvito]

Didn't they say they aren't drastically redefining the classes this time around?

They are unpruning them, of course Holinka is in charge of this so the bar is pretty low for expectations.

[Amarys]

1. I don't think this matters at all, they're all clustered together and probably will have FPs between them.

2. Sort of agreed. But then again I think covenants might be fun, depending on how they handle them. Knowing Blizzard though, I think they will nerf all choice based stuff to the ground or make it super easy to swap, which would make them suck. Guess we'll see.

3. This is a VERY good thing, I actually hope they remove some classes in the future and just add more specs instead. Id much rather have fewer characters that I actively play than 50 different classes collecting dust.

4. That's your personal opinion. I've wanted snowy, cold zones since Wrath... only got Frostfire ridge in WoD so far, which I loved. Bleh, but these look interesting too, especially the "vampire" zone, forgot the name.

[msdos]

I'm just tired of them putting in mediocre, lack luster, boring ass dung in the game. The Legion legendaries were basically the pinnacle of power, we will never return to that + set bonuses.

They like adding in shit essences now like:
Big AOE laser beam.
Thin single target laser beam.
Laser beam that adds a dot.
RNG laser beam that buffs the raid.
Laser beam that is invisible that grants you a cooldown.
Interactive laser beam on a 30 second cooldown.

Like they just do shit like that for the entire expansion and expect people to eat it up and some people do and we're caught in this vicious cycle.

How about an essence that just removes the GCD penalty for a duration? How about essences people would actually want?

[Osmeric]

They have never earn more money than nowadays with wow.

Since they don't break out WoW revenue anymore, I don't see how you could say this.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Personal opinion: I will give my personal opinion when the game is actually out.
Can't imagine why anyone would try to say what is and isn't going to be bad about a product we will play for 2 years before its even testable.
Half the stuff they said might not even be in the game by the time it launches, or more so, might change through out those 2 years.

Ya know, like BFA?

[Ielenia]

Disagree here.

Of course no one knows the future, so they (Blizzard) can surprise us -- but that's how predictions work. You make judgments based on information you have, and we have a lot of history with how blizzard does expansions along with plenty of information specific to the expansion to make a good judgment call (i.e. prediction) about its future.



You're misunderstanding.

I can say it was 100% accurate since I have the power of retrospection now. Of course they didn't know it was accurate at the time, but as it turned out it was. And it was based on early information. Just like now.

Then how come you can say it's "100% accurate" since I've shown two examples where the predictions couldn't be any wronger than they were? MoP was predicted as a bad expansion, and yet it was a a good, fun one! WoD was predicted to be a good expansion, and it was a terrible, unfun one.

[Mozu]

Then how come you can say it's "100% accurate" since I've shown two examples where the predictions couldn't be any wronger than they were? MoP was predicted as a bad expansion, and yet it was a a good, fun one! WoD was predicted to be a good expansion, and it was a terrible, unfun one.

MoP was predicted to be bad because of kung-fu panda and childish themes as you yourself pointed out. By using those same metrics it was bad considering it was kung-fu panda and childish themes. (Panda is the least played race in the game).

And as I already explained with WoD, it was a good expansion when content existed.

All predictions were correct.

[Brewhan]

Oh for sure anyone with an above 80 IQ knowns shadowlands is looking very barebones. There is just no way around that. Blizzard wouldn't have gone to blizzcon if they had more to show. They would have showed all their big bright ideas at blizzcon because that is when they hype up the pre orders and get the whales to buy right away. So the fact they had very few features and exciting things about this expansion to announce is worrying. I'll enjoy watching the collapse. This expansion will probably be the first with very shallow but replayable contant(tower of damned) to drive up those time metrics.

[Steelangel]

My main criticism of Shadowlands is that it feels a bit thin on the ground and lacking in content,

Uhh.. it’s a year out and beta hasn’t even been announced yet?

although that may be due to its relative newness

And you answer your own question. Blizzard underpromised at Blizzcon so that people would not be all up in arms because X was cut or Y was changed.

And now people are like “well I didn’t get X and Y isn’t what I want.” I swear, it takes the patience of saints at Blizzard HQ to deal with people on the forums.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

MoP was predicted to be bad because of kung-fu panda and childish themes as you yourself pointed out. By using those same metrics it was bad considering it was kung-fu panda and childish themes. (Panda is the least played race in the game).

And as I already explained with WoD, it was a good expansion when content existed.

All predictions were correct.

I hate to say it but you're right. 6.2 wasn't bad which is why I have came to agree with others, they need to LOAD and PACK new expansions at it feels like it's a .3 patch so it FEELS like a new expansion and there's soooo much content, you can't consume it within 2 weeks or a month. and then we wont need ridiculous time gating

[Ielenia]

MoP was predicted to be bad because of kung-fu panda and childish themes as you yourself pointed out. By using those same metrics it was bad considering it was kung-fu panda and childish themes. (Panda is the least played race in the game).

You're moving the goalposts, here and in the quote below. It doesn't matter why people thought MoP would be a bad expansion. The point is that they did, and were wrong.

And as I already explained with WoD, it was a good expansion when content existed.

"It was a good expansion when content existed." You mean the leveling experience. Because you basically had almost nothing to do in WoD at max level in terms of content aside from one tedious daily that was just "mindlessly kill mobs to fill up a progress bar, 1% after 1%". Nothing. WoD became a "bad expansion" before 6.1 even hit the PTR.

All predictions were correct.

You're outright being denying reality, here. MoP predictions were wrong (claimed bad expansion, turned out good expansion) and WoD predictions were wrong (claimed good expansion, turned out bad expansion). All you're doing here is moving goalposts in an attempt to claim that predictions for MoP and WoD were somehow correct.

[PaladinBash]

1: lol this is a silly thing to complain about. You have dramatically different zones with very clear themes for aesthetics, mobs and lore that can be built on and have stuff done with them. This is a big improvement from "swamp/desert/hills/cold/jungle" style zones that you normally get and Cata's only unique zones (Deepholm and Underwater World) were divisive. Some people hated Deepholm but I loved it and I loathed being underwater but some people are wrong and somehow enjoyed it. The others were very generic and bland and as much as people meme on WQs, they actually get you out into the world doing stuff other than just herbing along the river in Uldum and flying circles mining in Deepholm. Cata is a terrible comparison and this is a hilariously silly point.

2. "no features" and then the Diablo Tower which is a feature. It sounds to me it is like an island but in a room and which gradually gets harder and has good rewards. I don't even hate islands, I just think they get old pretty fast like everything else. This is a new version of them that's better than the existing one so that's fine with me. You eventually even get customised legendaries from it which needs deeper explanation but sounds better than what we currently have which is a lame as fuck cloak. What else is it supposed to have? I just wanna do new dungeons and raids and shit. I want new places to do WQs in. That's what most people care about and it has that, obviously, so the less extra pointless shit the better. Diablo Tower sounds way better than fucking islands even if it is a similar system.

3. good on them not adding another class. They add new shit all the time and leave existing specs that suck like Ret in the dirt. I don't believe for a second they will ever improve Ret except by accident and then find a way to ruin it and call it 'class fantasy' but still, seeing a new spec get things that make it functional and better than Ret will piss me off so I am against any of it.

4. lol no way. Bastion looks awesome. It's the High Heavens in WoW and I like it.

[Aucald]

Uhh.. it’s a year out and beta hasn’t even been announced yet?

I am referring to other announcements of previous expansions insofar as their gameplay and features trailers are concerned. Comparing Shadowlands to either the features trailers for Legion, or even BfA.

And you answer your own question. Blizzard underpromised at Blizzcon so that people would not be all up in arms because X was cut or Y was changed.

And now people are like “well I didn’t get X and Y isn’t what I want.” I swear, it takes the patience of saints at Blizzard HQ to deal with people on the forums.

This seems less like a statement of a fact and more one of optimistic hypothesis - it may be true, but we can't really know that. I also didn't positively state that there was anything I wanted that I didn't get, merely that what we've been shown to be getting *thus far* seems like demonstrably less than previous expansions.

[Mozu]

You're outright being denying reality, here. MoP predictions were wrong (claimed bad expansion, turned out good expansion) and WoD predictions were wrong (claimed good expansion, turned out bad expansion). All you're doing here is moving goalposts in an attempt to claim that predictions for MoP and WoD were somehow correct.

I already told you why you're wrong here. No point in driving the point endlessly.

[Ielenia]

I already told you why you're wrong here. No point in driving the point endlessly.

And I demonstrated how your reasoning is faulty.

All right. You go on in your own world where demonstrably wrong predictions are somehow "100% correct". I'll stay here in the real world.