Shadowlands - NO Hype at all? WTF.

[WowIsDead64]

Why is no one hyped for Shadowlands? Most expansions are normally talked to death before they come out but Shadowlands seems to be the exception.

There's so few videos about it.
There's such little online discussion about it.
There are next to ZERO Blueposts about the expansion.
Even on these forums, you can tell discussion is at an all time low. At this rate, Shadowlands will be BfA 3.0, just as Bellular predicted.


Was it how it was marketed? Was it Sylvanas? Why is it taking so long to see an alpha or beta? Maybe Blizzard is keeping it under wraps for now because they have some huge, exciting announcements for it.. ? (Doubt it.)

Boring xpack atm, that is going to be something average between BFA (lots of grind, rng and time-gating) and WOD (lack of content real, character customizations only). We don't need another xpack like that, sorry.

[schwank05]

Yea when priest where so op that they could boost a CM grp and do more dmg then a above average dps and top heal and shield in a raid so no other healer can heal(kinda funny looking at it now).Yes that is called imbalanced and overpowered.

But Oh so fun.

[erifwodahs]

Then BfA is the expansion your looking for to!

I have my issues with BfA. Legion was way more content and lore heavy, insame amount of things to do and they were just pumping new content as fast as you could do it. Then we got 8.2 which kind of felt like bfa, but that was a year into expansion and it had challenge mode which was awesome. First year of the expansion was the best it could be. Second year was nice but not so engaging in the story or the grind. Many people claimed BfA feels like continuation of Argus and I can somewhat agree. It was nice to start with because a load of new content to do for first few months and then it felt the same. 8.2 made the game significantly better so I think expansion was saved since then.

[Unholyground]

Hopefully they only show us something that is worth showing, as of what they announced at Blizzcon it is promising but could end up being another BfA disaster so most people who can look at the game impartially agree that BfA compared to all the other expansions (even worse than WoD) took many steps back in game design for lazy mobile game reward systems.

I have a theory that BfA was a test to see how much like a mobile game they could make WoW and realized that it didn't work out like they had planned.

[Leodok]

Promised systems and gameplay in general mean little until they're actually tested, and most of what can be judged from the announcement (lore, visuals, theme) range from unispired and boring to actively awful. Also no races, classes and that kind of thing.

[erifwodahs]

Yea when priest where so op that they could boost a CM grp and do more dmg then a above average dps and top heal and shield in a raid so no other healer can heal(kinda funny looking at it now).Yes that is called imbalanced and overpowered.

S2M during legion start was great fun. Licking the bottom and then suddenly racing through the matters to the top during the last minute of the fight doing 20% more dmg then a second dps . Oh good memories! DK to Wrath, maybe paladins to early wrath too? I mean that guy which you replied to seems to only enjoy the game where he can have advantage over other classes and wreck faces in pvp and meters on pve. Good thing we are in the days where worst class and best class is like 10% apart, not 50.

[MCitra]

I have more hype for TBC than a expansion where I have to see Sylvanas in another cinematic

Exactly this ^

[Jujudrood]

Hopefully its only 5%, because its not much. This expansion will be the first i wait on to pick up, because so far I haven't seen anything that gets me excited.

Yeah, me too.
And same as far as being excited, which I'm just not, not yet.
Covenants kinda look cool, I guess, but the abilities you get through them look to be a bit... much.
It seems they want to rely on an external factor to round out gameplay rotations instead of making the class themselves whole with just augmentation from covenants, but we'll see how it plays out in beta.
The tower might be cool, just don't know enough yet to really form an opinion yet.
Everything else, who knows.

[Mightytasty]

It is now April, 6 months after Blizzcon, and no alpha yet.

Makes me think back to Preach’s Blizzcon impression video where he said he “didn’t expect shadowlands until November/December” based on what they showed. This is looking very accurate, assuming a 6 month alpha/beta cycle

[FelPlague]

Boring xpack atm, that is going to be something average between BFA (lots of grind, rng and time-gating) and WOD (lack of content real, character customizations only). We don't need another xpack like that, sorry.

Lots of grind- sounds like every expac
RNG- uhh what? they are removing RNG in shadowlands... LOTS of rng is going away
Time gating- what are you talking about? the game has as much time gating as it always has.
Lack of content- uhh what? mind telling me what content this expansion is lacking that the rest had?
Character customizations only- what? Do you forget class customization with soulbinds, and covenents?

- - - Updated - - -

It is now April, 6 months after Blizzcon, and no alpha yet.

Makes me think back to Preach’s Blizzcon impression video where he said he “didn’t expect shadowlands until November/December” based on what they showed. This is looking very accurate, assuming a 6 month alpha/beta cycle

Which is good, i want them to have AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE to make sure its good. but sadly some players will never be impressed, and cry "content drought too long"
even though if it releases in december, it would be an average content drought duration.

Oh also it's been 5 months since blizzcon not 6.

[Lawzen]

What they've shown so far hasn't really been.... great. Also, the cinematic of Sylvanas taking out the Lich King with no effort was super weak. Blizzard just aren't the company they were years ago.

[Kralljin]

Which is good, i want them to have AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE to make sure its good.

Friendly reminder, there was a 14 month content drought between 5.4 and WoD.

[FelPlague]

Hopefully they only show us something that is worth showing, as of what they announced at Blizzcon it is promising but could end up being another BfA disaster so most people who can look at the game impartially agree that BfA compared to all the other expansions (even worse than WoD) took many steps back in game design for lazy mobile game reward systems.

I have a theory that BfA was a test to see how much like a mobile game they could make WoW and realized that it didn't work out like they had planned.

Yeah what they have shown so far is exciting. But like BFA it's a lot of concepts and talk. That we need to see out in-game. Azerite gear sounded great when they told us about it and its great now. But when it first launched it was horrible.
We need to see if these things they talk to us about, how they actually play, before we know.

- - - Updated - - -

Friendly reminder, there was a 14 month content drought between 5.4 and WoD.

Yeeeeah... Which is why I tell people that a long beta/alpha phase, and long dev time means nothing... But you can still hope.
theoreticly a long dev time should produce a bigger and better game but well... yeah... it still fits the theory that they dropped wod almost right after launch, to work just on legion, and all the content they had was what they had made before wod launched, in all that time.

- - - Updated - - -

What they've shown so far hasn't really been.... great. Also, the cinematic of Sylvanas taking out the Lich King with no effort was super weak. Blizzard just aren't the company they were years ago.

"With no effort" what? How do you know how much effort she put in? Cause the fight was pretty long, and she got nearly killed a fair few times.
That's like saying killing Varian took no effort cause Guldan just touched him and he died.

[Musta]

december launch detected

[Mightytasty]

Lots of grind- sounds like every expac
RNG- uhh what? they are removing RNG in shadowlands... LOTS of rng is going away
Time gating- what are you talking about? the game has as much time gating as it always has.
Lack of content- uhh what? mind telling me what content this expansion is lacking that the rest had?
Character customizations only- what? Do you forget class customization with soulbinds, and covenents?

- - - Updated - - -



Which is good, i want them to have AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE to make sure its good. but sadly some players will never be impressed, and cry "content drought too long"
even though if it releases in december, it would be an average content drought duration.

Oh also it's been 5 months since blizzcon not 6.

November December January February March April

On topic, I hope they release the leveling revamp early. Already got my mad world title and killed heroic nzoth. Besides that though I’m enjoying this 100% exp boost. Otherwise I may not play past June. This summer is gonna be very very dry.

[Unholyground]

Yeah what they have shown so far is exciting. But like BFA it's a lot of concepts and talk. That we need to see out in-game. Azerite gear sounded great when they told us about it and its great now. But when it first launched it was horrible.
We need to see if these things they talk to us about, how they actually play, before we know.

Ya that is what I am saying, I really wish people would stop pre-ordering expansions too until we know for sure it is going to be good.

I still think as they have stated they will be focusing on mobile games more going forward as a company that BfA could have been them using mobile reward structures to see how close they can get them to a rewards systems. Anyone who has played any mobile RPG knows that they throw useless gear at you constantly to keep that dopamine level up, most of which is not usable and you just scrap. Seems a lot like what happened in BfA the first few months, lots to do and lots of rewards with no real substance.

[FelPlague]

November December January February March April

On topic, I hope they release the leveling revamp early. Already got my mad world title and killed heroic nzoth. Besides that though I’m enjoying this 100% exp boost. Otherwise I may not play past June. This summer is gonna be very very dry.

.... We are at the START of april...
november 3rd was blizzcon
to december third, that is 1 month
to jan third that is 2 months
to feb third that is 3 months...
to march third that is 4 months....
to april third is 5 months...
wait, are you one of those people who see a friend on december 31st, and then when you see them jan 1st you say "i havent seen you in a year!" but you arnt being ironic?
Cause you seem to think that for example, doing something on march 31st, then april first comes along, saying "i havent done that in a month" is normal?


It has been exactly 150 days since november third
each month is about 30 days
that is 5 months...
but again literally 5 months, not 6 my dude...

"I havent done that in a month" does not mean "hey its april first, and i havent done that since march 31st" it means "i havent done that since march first"


leveling revamp will likely be with pre patch, which they said will come very early.

[Mightytasty]

.... We are at the START of april...
november 3rd was blizzcon
to december third, that is 1 month
to jan third that is 2 months
to feb third that is 3 months...
to march third that is 4 months....
to april third is 5 months...
wait, are you one of those people who see a friend on december 31st, and then when you see them jan 1st you say "i havent seen you in a year!" but you arnt being ironic?
Cause you seem to think that for example, doing something on march 31st, then april first comes along, saying "i havent done that in a month" is normal?


It has been exactly 150 days since november third
each month is about 30 days
that is 5 months...
but again literally 5 months, not 6 my dude...

"I havent done that in a month" does not mean "hey its april first, and i havent done that since march 31st" it means "i havent done that since march first"


leveling revamp will likely be with pre patch, which they said will come very early.

You’re right but 5 months is an abnormally long time to hear nothing. Pandemic aside, people were expecting an alpha in Jan/early Feb.

I’m just trying to make sense of their typical development timeline.

WoD came after a 14 month drought at the end of MoP, and we saw that it was the emptiest expansion of all time. However there were rumors that Blizzard was actively hiring and rebuilding their team at this point.

Then, Legion came after WoD - however they had given up on the expansion early to develop Legion, so actually Legion had a much much longer active development cycle than normal. Plus the long drought after Hellfire Citadel. Legion was polished at launch and generally well received by players.

Legion was actively patched (unlike WoD) and had aggressively paced content up until 7.3, then we got an accelerated 5(?) month alpha beta cycle for BFA. Systems like Azerite armor were introduced a week before launch. It was obvious that BFA needed several more months of development.

Where does that lead us with Shadowlands? BFA, like Legion, had well paced patch content, and 8.2 in particular was huge. It can be safely assumed BFA was in active development up until this January with the launch of 8.3. Asking Blizzard to deliver a Legion-quality expansion with only a 9-10 month gap might be a tall order.

[makls]

S2M during legion start was great fun. Licking the bottom and then suddenly racing through the matters to the top during the last minute of the fight doing 20% more dmg then a second dps . Oh good memories! DK to Wrath, maybe paladins to early wrath too? I mean that guy which you replied to seems to only enjoy the game where he can have advantage over other classes and wreck faces in pvp and meters on pve. Good thing we are in the days where worst class and best class is like 10% apart, not 50.

Yes idd,bfa did some good balancing,every healer is on par or close and dps are not that much behind anymore but its overshadowed atleast for pve.

[Divinex]

Do you guys think that they will add unpruned abilities back in the pre patch?