Soo...Is Shadowlands any good?

[McNeil]

Its way to early to tell, I haven't even finished Bastion yet. I remember these same threads that were praising Cata, WoD and even BFA as some of the best expansions and look how they turned out later on. If I really had to say how good it is so far with a gun pointing to my head, I'd say its about on par with Legion which is a middle down the road expansion.

[melzas]

So far Ardenweald seems to be my fav. zone. Loved the story, looks, music... One of the best leveling zones, likely better than Azsuna.
From some comments here I can only assume those folks over here never liked wow leveling/questing because what we have now is as WoW as it gets, Level dependant zones, with some collecting, killing and using items quests with few cinematics. Only negative so far is dungeons being locked.
Edit: Most are voting positively so it seems that negative comments are just an overrepresentation

Well obviously, most people who enjoy the game are actually playing it right now, salty whiners are here to spread their negativity as usual.

Unhappy people want everyone around them to be equally miserable, it's their thing.

[Packmule]

How can people HONESTLY saying its better then anything. Leveling was fine, personally dindt like maldraxus to much. At max level alot of shit coming at once. Only thing i disliked so far is being forced to complete the campaign, or you wont be able to take a convenant. Other then that, realy need atleast 2-3 weeks to get into the expansions feautures alot and get a real opinion on things

[un_known]

For the people like myself, who aren't playing it. Is it any good?

To put it like this: BFA leveling made me want to switch off and was bored out of my skull, while Shadowlands is holding my interest and the zones look amazing! Was nearly late for work as I was too engaged in the surroundings and the campaign

[mrsohta]

I'll tell you if I can play Still on queue at this time...

[Cyi]

I have been enjoying it. The zones are well done as are the quests, although I would have preferred a less linear design of them. The main thing I dont like is that I feel I have to level through the whole expansion once before I can play my alts, otherwise I am locked into the linear design on all of them. Other than that, so far so good, level 57 right now just taking my time.

Not sure if this matters, but this is without a doubt the first time I have actually read all the quest texts. Trying to get engaged with the story this time around so I have a better idea of my characters role in it all.

[slime]

It's great so far, how could it not be it's all new.

The question is will SL be great in 2-3 weeks. I hope so I'm into it for now - but I have a feeling the pick a covenant thing will be a big turn off.

[Laqweeta]

...most people enjoyed WoD's leveling experience, too. It's difficult to judge an expansion off of just the launch content.

Exactly - remember 2 months into WoD?

Anyway, I refunded my purchase a few weeks ago and safe to say I'm glad I did. WoD, Legion and BfA (Shareholder expansions) at least taught me to wait.

[Eggroll]

Because I'm always making threads about how WoW is bad? Idk dude, I barely post. Usually when I do it's in response to somebody complaining about a complete non-issue and blowing it out of proportion.

I'm talking about you wasting your time specifically going to MMO-C to LOOK for comments/threads that confirm your opinion that everyone at MMO-C is just trash.
You're in the same boat, like it or not.

And just because something isn't an issue for you, doesn't mean it isn't a valid critique. Maybe you just have low standards - and ignorance is bliss, we all know that.

[DarkAmbient]

Which would be a good point if the question asked had been 'Was shadowlands any good?'. Luckily, the question contains the word 'is' which refers to the present. The English language contains tenses specifically to avoid this confusion.

It's the same reason why when somebody asks me how I'm doing, I assume they're asking me how I'm doing right now. Otherwise, I'd have to say that it's too early to tell because nobody knows what the future holds, and while I may feel great now it could all change down the line.

Very lame attempt at argument via pedantry.

A matter of hours in is really too early to say how good Shadowlands is. It takes a while for the consequences of all the game design decisions to become clear.

[tikcol]

Mediocre like bfa but with more over the top storyline which makes it even worse. Easy drop

[Sunderella]

For now, the stories on bastion and ardenweald are pretty boring to me. maldraxxus was ok and I expect great things for Revendreth. the leveling feels good though.

[Irian]

Too early to tell, but my personal opinion so far is lukewarm at best. It's alright.

[Nuciek]

That's fair, though as someone who hasn't bought it yet I still am interested in early impressions. Overall this thread makes it sound like waiting is the better option. Maybe next xpac.

Yeah but what people forget about WOD is that the content was great, the problem with WOD was that there was just not a lot of it in a long run.

To put it like this: BFA leveling made me want to switch off and was bored out of my skull, while Shadowlands is holding my interest and the zones look amazing! Was nearly late for work as I was too engaged in the surroundings and the campaign

I did enjoy BFA zones but SL are way better. I think SL leveling is the best there ever was to be fair. I really enjoy the aesthetics and campaign. Ardenweald was a bit worse then the rest for me (I'm not into the druidic-fairy-nature-type style) but I loved Maldraxxus and Revendreth. I hit 60 yesterday and so far I'm having a blast. Dungeons are great, BG was fun, Thorgast was a lot of fun. Gearing in my opinion is (so far) a lot better, but we'll see how it will go in two weeks. There are some minor issues and bugs that I have encountered but not anything that would destroy my mood.

My verdict: It has a potential to be the best xpac in my opinion, right now it's on the upper side of the scale, but we'll have to see how it goes when we'll get the end game content.

[iosdeveloper]

graphics are amazing, that's what i have to say)
the new-content euphoria will wear off soon

[lagiacrux]

im half through ardenweald, and im enjoying my time so far. maldraxxus had some nice memorable characters and i enjoyed the look and feel of it. as usual the art and sound team have outdone themself. everything looks gorgeous and the music is amazing. looking forward to the weekend where i can really sink my teeth into it and see whats going on at maxlvl.

Only thing i disliked so far is being forced to complete the campaign, or you wont be able to take a convenant.

i would agree with you, but the fact that you can skip all main quests on any alt makes it ok for me. do it once, skip it for every alt if you want.

[Caerule]

Bastion is good. Maldraxxus I wasn't a fan of. Maybe it'll grow on me... I'm not even halfway through Ardenweald and its so different. You can feel that tons of love went into crafting every inch of this place. Big fan.

Overall having a great time.

[Tojara]

Not sure how you can even come to a conclusion after two days, lol, especially for an MMO.

Upfront the leveling is about the same as it always is and it's going to differ between people. Personally it's one of the better set of leveling zones (Legion and BFA zones, especially BFA zones weren't my favorite) we've gotten since WoD. Everything is pretty distinct and different, and the journey to 60 really doesn't take all that long. They force you to do the campaign once, but that's really not much different than how 95% of the community approaches a new expansion anyways.

After you finish the campaign on one character your second character can choose to do the campaign, or have a more open ended approach to leveling. Instead you get a giant bar to fill which gives you a third of a level, and you fill the bar by doing bonus objectives, world quests, or any of the quests that aren't part of the main story campaign in the zone (and there's a lot more than you would think). It's a nice change of pace, and if you want, you could just dungeon grind or whatever.

Coming to a conclusion is a bit premature already. None of the real end game systems are available yet, so it's going to come down to whether or not you like leveling, the covenant that you pick and a soulbind tree that's 1/10th complete at this point of time.

The only real negative through the whole process so far was the Maw, but I know that it gets less tedious eventually when more options open up that allow you to travel around the zone far more efficiently. Anybody who plays a class with limited mobility options probably has a lesser opinion of this area compared to others.

[Tattarus]

This has been my 3rd D1 launch for me, so I can only compare SL to Legion and BfA launch...
Legion will always have a special place in my heart because it's been my first launch, BfA was nice but a step down from Legion.
But I must say i'm finding SL really good. Almost lv 57 and i'm half done with Maldraxxus and I'm loving every bit of the experience till now.
Mind you, I'm a kind of player who read all the quest text, like to explore every nook of a zone and do all the quests i can find.

Oribos as main hub is really nice too, having everything at hand's reach is great after 2 years of Zuldazar

[Nathasil]

My first impression is not good.

If you compare it to any decent expansion (=anything except BFA) you SHOULD expect to receive something awesome during leveling...be it new abilities, new Talents, a powerful Item....anything. Shadowlands does not have that. It features "preview abilities". Not a fan. At all.

I have never felt so desinterested in the story of an expansion before. I cannot exactly nail why...maybe BFA just broke my connection to the franchise beyond repair...but i just don't care about ANYTHING happening in the zones. It could very well be that the core premise of this expansion is that death is 100% meaningless, which means you should simply not care about what happens to anybody or anything anymore. This could be it. Or it could be that the story is extremely convoluted and does not allow itself the time to actually tell you anything in depth with a little build up...it's just scene after scene after scene of nonsense.

I think the Legion Demonhunter introductory questline/zone completely blows the SLs introduction out of the water...and that was the starting experience for a class...optional content that not everybody was meant to have to play...the SLs intro is mandatory...and it sucks.

Also, i have never before seen so many "slightly adapted" old models in new expansion zones before. Yes, most creatures introduced by new expansions reuse old skeletons and only slightly change the models...but SLs simply reuses 50% of it's mobs unchanged and the rest are MOSTLY (=not all of them) slightly altered old models. Coupled with the lack of new abilities/class this just leaves a lazy impression on me.

It's not all bad. But to me, it definetly seems a LOT below Legion in terms of content/effort/systems....and since BFA was WORSE than WoD, SLs would have needed to be a step up from Legion...which it isn't. Not for me, anyway.