Shadowlands: Rapidly Climbing the Ladder in Popularity

[ashblond]

Simply not true. It broke sales records and had people excited to move out of BfA. Have you checked the quarterly reports recently? Because nothing you say is supported.

And yes, BfA was heavily panned during the 1st month. I remember that too.

SL will soon pass BFA as the most boring expansion in recent years.

[Soon-TM]

Basically, the only good thing I can say about SL is that...
It isn't BfA. While it's true, it isn't really exciting news, especially when loot simply doesn't drop in PvE, outside of the vault, that is.

[ashblond]

I am Blizzard shareholder, I know how its quarterly report and share prices goes. And I know exactly what I am talking about.

The sales record of SL doesn't mean anything. It is a result of long beta exposure and today's over-developed streaming culture, plus players' extreme fatigue with BFA especially 1 year long 8.3.

WoW's sub peak was at early Cataclysme, which surpassed WLK, MoP or Legion by far. It doesn't mean Cata were necessarily the best or most popular expansion.

Players buying SL =/= Players loving SL =/= SL is a good expansion.

And what exactly were people hyped about SL before launch?

- Covenants? Most people didn't know what they were and streamers were more concerned about the balance issue.
- Torghast? maybe, but it is not as promising as hyped so far.
- Lore? Nobody knew much about SL or Jailer. It was not as well-knows as BFA's kultiran/zandalar, Azshara, Old god element
- New race/Class? there is none.

There really wasn't anything concrete to be hyped about SL, except people were tired of BFA.

"BFA was heavily panned" was simply not true. Players loved Jaina questline, praised how awesome drustvar was as a quest zone, how amazing the freehold, wcm dungeons are, how good the boralus city was. etc.

The only criticize back then was azerite armor and you need necklace level to unlock the traits. Nobody criticized the content itself, just like every expansion in its first month, because everything was "new".

SL solved part of the horrible, unnecessary, over-complicated sytems in BFA, but it is not enough.

I put my words here: Players will get bored of SL faster than ever.

It rapidly drops popularity as expected.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Sadly the make or break for most expansions, when it comes to my personal opinion, boils down to content. Does it have it, is it timely, and is it good. Some expansions have great content but it's to thin and takes to long to arrive so it becomes a trash expansion for me. Others that rancid content that is flying off the shelves every 4 months and that too becomes trash to me. Sadly very few manage this balance (and I don't count end of expansion droughts because you are just a sucker if you don't unsub there).

So time will tell with SL. WoD was pretty sick that first month or two then it was a hot mess unless you raid/garrison logged. BFA was a disaster its first few months and wobbled to its feet finally (even though still not great it pulled itself from disaster to survivable). So to judge at this point is insane.

[Wolfrick]

Shadowlands is moving in the right direction... it has a lot of potential and its a really good start of an expansion. (you can see how much Classic made its mark on the dev team)

Now that they are gonna work on the Classic Burning Crusade... I think that the 10.0 Expansion will be super amazing, since in Burning crusade, the World yet again was the content, with so many dungeons and extra reputaions and factions that you did not have to do, but could do if you wanted to.

We will see what the future bring.

PS:
Me personaliy I really love Shadowlands, it feels like a great great start.... and it seems like the Developer team has finally told the Money people to shut up with those stupid "one year expanion ideas.... and make WoW... like a mobile game".... it feels like an mmorpg again... the Future is very bright and seems like its a great time to be a world of warcraft fan ^^

PPS:
I am a veteran from vanilla and I have played since the very start, with a shaman that has over 700 days played ^^
I have always had huge Faith in the Blizzard team and the World of Warcraft team, what ever people say, and it seems like we are on the right track again... since
Warlords of dreanor and Cataclysm.... kinda took world of warcraft on a spin... that made the very essence of the game change alot, the Future is bright and we are back on track... lets enjoy this guys ^^

[Three Faced Goddess]

For me SL is just okay. It had the potential to be one of the best expansion based on the concept alone, but it fell significant short of my hopes.

[Powerogue]

Hard to breach my addiction to Legion but I cannot deny they resuscitated my murdered outlaw rogue back into being fun, has plenty of unique content for me to play at least 4 alts, the level squish was the right choice and I love the new starting zone, I'm at just about 100% positivity so far.

If it holds to expectations so far it'd be my second favorite expansion, BFA probably being 4th place and WOD still permanently last.

[Tyrannica]

If it holds to expectations so far it'd be my second favorite expansion, BFA probably being 4th place and WOD still permanently last.

Strange to say that from a rogue POV to say WoD is last, class design of rogue specs in WoD never was better and was on its total peak!

[Powerogue]

Strange to say that from a rogue POV to say WoD is last, class design of rogue specs in WoD never was better and was on its total peak!

My class could've been perfect but it wouldn't really have mattered without anything to do once I hit max level.



By contrast, despite my grievances with BFA and my outlaw rogue having his burst dps completely removed, I just played some of my multitudes of alts I had from Legion. I played BFA, subbed the whole way through, I gave up on WOD after under 2 weeks, only to try it again out of curiosity in Legion like "well, did I miss anything good?" I did not.

[Godric]

This might be the earliest in an expansion where I was absolutely soul-crushingly bored. I think 9.1 is going to hurt SL's reputation further considering we're getting no tier sets, a couple of mounts and a raid filled with more of the same.

[Demithio]

I'm glad some people are enjoying SL. I cant comment too much about it based on my own personal experience, since I haven't bought it. However, based on other people's testimony, and my experiences with the last few expansions, you simply cannot compare it to the likes of TBC or Wotlk. The game has been forever altered in such a way that its comparing apples and oranges. Different feel, different mindset, different focus, different crowd. The game has been cluttered with so much fluff it has gutted the soul of what made WoW, WoW. Perhaps SL may be 'good' by today's standards for WoW, but it could never match TBC or wotlk for the epic experience those expansions gave.

WoW could have continued to thrive, really thrive, throughout the years if Blizzard would have just stuck with the formula that worked. yes, things could have been wisely added, however what was added over time has changed the very fundamental nature of the gameplay. Very poor design decisions, and far too much clutter and fluff. There's something to be said about having to fill in the blanks with your imagination, and not being spoon fed content and cut scenes to create a story line. You created your own story line back then, it was far more of an adventure than anything Blizzard could produce these days.

[OMGTwitchTV]

This might be the earliest in an expansion where I was absolutely soul-crushingly bored. I think 9.1 is going to hurt SL's reputation further considering we're getting no tier sets, a couple of mounts and a raid filled with more of the same.

I'm still optimistic with the new Mega-dungeon (micro-raid) like what we saw with Mechagon or BRD back in the day.

[Video Games]

Pretty safe to say this is my least favorite expac at this point. I hate almost everything about it except mythic sludgefist and a few dungeons

[OMGTwitchTV]

Pretty safe to say this is my least favorite expac at this point. I hate almost everything about it except mythic sludgefist and a few dungeons

Given the garbage pail that was Warlords, you must have a pretty high bar.

[Th3Scourge]

The problem from my perspective is that, outside of raiding, pvp and M+, there isn't a great deal of things to do.

They seem to have pinned much of their content on covenant campaigns, as a way of being similar to class order hall campaigns from Legion. The biggest difference is that the covenants are not established lore, so much of the content has no connection to the player. In Legion, the class campaigns had you going all over Azeroth, interacting with established lore characters and uncovering more of the story that really had a sense of buy-in from the player.

Now the covenant campaigns in SL is trying to use established lore characters to give the player a sense of connection but it just feels forced and really uninteresting. Everything Maldraxxus is a perfect example of this. The entire zone, theme and story feels like it's trying way too hard

They should've ended wow at Legion

[Video Games]

Given the garbage pail that was Warlords, you must have a pretty high bar.

The difference in raid logging then was that the raid was fun xd

[OMGTwitchTV]

The difference in raid logging then was that the raid was fun xd

Oh... you're one of those. That's fair.

[kaintk]

I can only speak for myself, but so far, this expansion is on par to be my new favorite. It has already knocked TBC out of 2nd place and is heavily breathing down the neck of WotLK for first. I came into this game Jan 19, 2006, and after Cataclysm, have just not been impressed with the DLCs that followed. Granted, that is just my personal, subjective opinion. I am speaking for no one but myself, nor am I claiming my opinion to be imperical data on the state of the other DLCs.

Is anyone else either seeing Shadowlands move into their number one spot, or at least rapidly climbing the ranks? I know we still have a ways to go in this expac, but if 9.1 and 9.2 are anything like the launch, I have no doubt this expac will apologize for the last 4 in my book and become the new number one on my list.

Explain to us why there already a lot of gamer leaving the game if it is that good ?

[Skylarking]

SL to me is at the bottom with bfa. I hope in 9.3 they let all hell break loose like multiple legendaries, absolutely dumb shit in torghast etc. Cause right now I'm just raid logging. Not enjoying anything else.

[DesmondCreighton]

I find the expansion really lame and boring. The Jailer is such a boring mustache twirling villain, and the story so far is pretty incomprehensible. I think back in WC3 days if someone told you all that's happened in the lore since then - they'd laugh in your face and call you a liar. Honestly, I assume someone with a drug problem (Metzen), could only be responsible for the clusterfrick expansions we've had since WOTLK. This whole Sylvanas storyline has been a series of cliches they've redone several times over - and now we're forced to see all our old, dead heroes shoved into new roles in Shadowlands because Blizzard views nostalgia trips as player currency when really they're just taking a steamy dump on their own lore. Look, I'm not saying the zones aren't beautiful - the WoW team has only improved with their environmental design since WOTLK, but who the hell is coming up with these nonsensical storylines? That they plan all this -years- in advance just blows my mind. Torghast also has to be one of the most bland instances I've done, and they want me to do it -how- much? Madness.