The leveling experience intro is terribly bad in my opinion

[Deadheadz]

I didn't even want to keep playing (used to take time off of work for new XPs). They botched the hell out of this IMO

[Clarissa]

I don’t like how I feel locked on a rail with the new expansion experience.

It's terrible. Zero player agency.
A mmo is supposed to let the player tell their own stories, do things the way they want. If you're going to railroad the player into a story, it better be really, really good, but blizzard is godawful at story telling.

[lagiacrux]

i wasnt blown away by the maw intro either.
its too RP heavy imho.
and during the steath section, the npc's kept running into the eyes, so we would get unstealted and had to kill the adds.

all in all, not too bad, but also nothing special.

[Nyel]

What was blizzard thinking? No mounts, slow slow slow walking, sneaking, NPCs spamming entire books of text before you can move on without any voice acting, obnoxious cutscenes. This is the worst intro to leveling in a new expansion I've seen, and I usually like the new leveling experiences, but this is BAD.

We've been telling Blizzard this for months and months and they still stuck to this horribly executed entry questline.

[Godric]

Yeah it sucked. But Bastion feels like an even bigger drag. Got about 60 percent through the zone and my group of friends didn’t feel like doing anymore.

I don’t know. Maybe it was the Maw and Bastion back to back but I rarely realize how much time wow is making me waste yet it was glaringly obvious most of the time with these quests.

[Dhrizzle]

I can see how the mindless "Lets not think about how the story fits together too hard" would love it as well.

Well yeah but that's been WoW pretty much since the beginning, they've always gone for comic-book style lore where they just stack up cool experiences without caring about the overall coherency.

- - - Updated - - -

We've been telling Blizzard this for months and months and they still stuck to this horribly executed entry questline.

I guess they must have listened to the other people who were telling them its okay.

[Kumorii]

everything is close by except the walk to anduin, but that's not really long. No issues with voice acting except that it's bland and generic for main characters but that's just my preference. Baine didn't die though so yeah, bad intro.

[Sialina]

Well yeah but that's been WoW pretty much since the beginning, they've always gone for comic-book style lore where they just stack up cool experiences without caring about the overall coherency.

I agree to a point, the more you stack on top the shakier it gets though. With the current stack of time travel and alternate universes getting an infinite afterlife makes the whole thing worse. Don't get me wrong, I haven't cared about the story for a long time, I thought WC3 was pretty neat, but as Archimonde was stopped I pretty much had enough already and didn't enjoy it much in TBC.

Wow back then had many small stories I enjoyed instead, that has somewhat gone away with the newer on rails questing and a main storyline. I really disliked the WoD story but I found parts of it Enjoyable, like finding Yrel. And I'm sure I will like parts of Shadowlands as well. I just didn't enjoy the maw intro very much, it is supposed to be this dangerous place you don't want to go, and it is, but for the wrong reasons, slow NPCs and way too much walking, sneaking and RPing made the whole thing feel lame and I don't look forward to doing it again.

[Neuroticaine]

In my opinion wows story peaked a long long time ago, and it's best suited for people aged 8 and below nowdays, but if you enjoy it I won't stop you. Don't act like you know why I play the game though.

Warcraft's story has never been anything better than saturday morning cartoon level. Ever.

- - - Updated - - -

Well yeah but that's been WoW pretty much since the beginning, they've always gone for comic-book style lore where they just stack up cool experiences without caring about the overall coherency.

Honestly always been baffled by anyone thinking otherwise.

[Dhrizzle]

I agree to a point, the more you stack on top the shakier it gets though. With the current stack of time travel and alternate universes getting an infinite afterlife makes the whole thing worse. Don't get me wrong, I haven't cared about the story for a long time, I thought WC3 was pretty neat, but as Archimonde was stopped I pretty much had enough already and didn't enjoy it much in TBC.

Wow back then had many small stories I enjoyed instead, that has somewhat gone away with the newer on rails questing and a main storyline. I really disliked the WoD story but I found parts of it Enjoyable, like finding Yrel. And I'm sure I will like parts of Shadowlands as well. I just didn't enjoy the maw intro very much, it is supposed to be this dangerous place you don't want to go, and it is, but for the wrong reasons, slow NPCs and way too much walking, sneaking and RPing made the whole thing feel lame and I don't look forward to doing it again.

Honestly I quite liked it, my biggest problem was it looked a bit too much like Malthael's realm from Diablo 3 and I had to fight the urge to AoE all the pots that were stacked up everywhere. The difficulty wasn't a problem to me, I'm used to being introduced to new terrible threats and instantly kicking their asses to next Tuesday - I've seen worse hells and fought bigger gods than what the Shadowlands are offering.

Haven't tired alts yet but if they can't skip the intro scenario I'd say Blizz have made a mistake, I don't mind the slower pacing while NPCs are dropping exposition all over the place but it will get tiresome on repeated plays.

[cparle87]

Honestly I quite liked it, my biggest problem was it looked a bit too much like Malthael's realm from Diablo 3 and I had to fight the urge to AoE all the pots that were stacked up everywhere. The difficulty wasn't a problem to me, I'm used to being introduced to new terrible threats and instantly kicking their asses to next Tuesday - I've seen worse hells and fought bigger gods than what the Shadowlands are offering.

Haven't tired alts yet but if they can't skip the intro scenario I'd say Blizz have made a mistake, I don't mind the slower pacing while NPCs are dropping exposition all over the place but it will get tiresome on repeated plays.

Well, what's a threat to you really isn't the issue here. You're a certified in-universe badass. The problem is those things you're scoffing at ARE in fact a big threat to... I dunno, the rest of reality. It's like a guy with a state of the art hazmat suit frolicking through a nuclear fallout zone laughing at all the people dying of tumors around them.

[Malania]

The intro was fine bar that final f'ing ESCORT QUEST *rage intensifies*. Had to restart it because they got lost fighting an army.

I did notice the lack of a mount and that felt jarring but I'm a Hunter so I could disengage and aspect to my hearts content anyway.

[Okacz]

While slightly buggy, the intro was fine to me. Voice acting worked aight etc.

The only major issue was the complete lack of tension. Same as with WoD, nothing in there feels like it's posing any danger, but every ultrapowerful NPC (like Jaina who can summon a fucking iceboat) keeps crying about how "hopeless the situation is" and "Jailers armies are unending". Idk, Legion did it vastly better, at least if felt like it's an actually dangerous situation.

That and forcing Horde players to rescue Anduin.

[Nyel]

I guess they must have listened to the other people who were telling them its okay.

So the bar is "okay" and not "good" to "great" anymore?

[Nalam the Venom]

Worgens say hi, it turns out you can use Running Wild in the Maw

Hopefully that is not changed. Would be fun seeing every one race change to worgens.

[Katchii]

Intro sequence for shadowlands, the brand new character one was nice in my opinion.

Yeah, before I came back to answer I was able to get started in Shadowlands. I understand what you're talking about.

I personally didn't mind it, as I'm a bit of a lore junkie and the exposition was cool, but I completely understand how the super slow moving stuff and not being able to move faster even if you wanted to would be frustrating.

I liked the intro Maw sequence too, the "ending" gives us a huge incentive to go back, which is cool because it's something to look forward to and work towards.

[Dhrizzle]

So the bar is "okay" and not "good" to "great" anymore?

Okay, good, great... what I meant was Blizz would have received positive and negative feedback and would have decided to go with the positive.

[Feralheart]

I'm just bored of being railroaded down mandatory story quest lines and phased, pointless, single-player content. I miss the freedom of exploring the open world, doing whatever I want and being able to seek out the story when/if desired.

Unfortunately, I don't think WoW is for me any longer. That said, I hope that those who the game now caters for are able to get everything they want and all the enjoyment they can from Shadowlands.

[Arainie]

If you play the game for the story, you need to stop and find something that has a story, read a book, play a game with an actual story, anything.

Back on topic once you get out of The maw it's way way way better.

It has a pretty decent story, you just fail to appreciate it and that's largely on you. The intro isn't bad either, but I do agree the amount of slow escorting could be lower.

[Eurhetemec]

What was blizzard thinking? No mounts, slow slow slow walking, sneaking, NPCs spamming entire books of text before you can move on without any voice acting, obnoxious cutscenes. This is the worst intro to leveling in a new expansion I've seen, and I usually like the new leveling experiences, but this is BAD.

Uhhhh, there was voice-acting on all or almost all of it when I played it last night. You might want to check your sound settings aren't fucked. The cutscenes weren't "obnoxious" either, there were actually fewer than I expected and they were pretty short. Nor was the lack of mounts or anything a real issue.

The only real issue was that there was waaaaaaaay too much standing around whilst NPCs talked. They could have at least had us fighting stuff whilst NPCs talked more. And that is a real issue that you're kind of hiding by putting it in with minor bullshit. It was slow and didn't feel great - and that wasn't walking or whatever - it was just way too much talking whilst standing still.