Some Honest Thoughts About the State of Shadowlands

[Gaidax]

you mean recton everything the old writers built

Such as?

People throwing this "retcon" crap right and left, but there is big difference between retcon and getting actual new information.

[Varitok]

I haven't played in like two months. Finished the renown grind and peaced out. This is what WoW is now though, since Legion.

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Such as?

People throwing this "retcon" crap right and left, but there is big difference between retcon and getting actual new information.

That's exactly what a retcon is. New information that goes against existing information so you can squeeze it into your new narrative. Sure, new information is a thing but there hasn't been much expansion, as there has been erase and replace nowadays.

[Freedom]

I totally agree with Zack in this video;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA_hdKHqoCs

Been playing since launch, and Shadowlands is just so disappointing and boring. These insane "systems" are just ridiculous already, they were sort of cool and fresh in Legion, and not as much in BfA, and now just aggravating to have in the game. I'd much rather have the MoP style of WoW back.

In my opinion though, the best recent expansion was easily Legion, man I loved Legion, so much fun, so fresh at the time, especially after WoD. I played Legion pretty much 6 or 7 nights a week a couple hours each time, for almost 2 years straight, loved everything about that expansion. But for some reason Shadowlands feels like a generic hollowed out empty version, boring, and tedious, and lacking all fun.

Nice thread title. Not only does the word "honest" add nothing (What are they going to be instead of honest thoughts, dishonest and dubious ones you're not even sure you have or not? And if they were dishonest or dubious thoughts and you knew it, would you really say so?) then the main thrust of the thread isn't even your own opinion. Or is this where the dishonest part comes in? 'Cause I am pretty sure linking videos is frowned upon even if they aren't yours and is only really OK in the main thread for that.

Also like how you say you hate systems, then praise Legion, which is the expansion that started all this borrowed power and system overload in the first place. Probably the reason it feels emptied out and hollow is they've done it for 3 expansions in a row now, except SL actually has less amount of mandatory content to compete, whereas Legion had the original, rather OP for gearing iteration of M+, Legiondaries, Titanforging, mindnumbing Artifact Power G-G-GRIND up the ass and the Netherlight Crucible... many of those reliant on RNG.

[hulkgor]

Because it was.

MOP gained TONS of subs. They started "bleeding" only after 6+ months of SOO (which lasted a lot longer, sadly)

But speaking about QUALITY of gameplay- MOP was ABSOLUTE BEST!

It wasn't the "Golden Age", and was vastly criticized for several issues ('new lore', meme race, bla bla).

It also did not gain subs whatsoever, yet alone "TONS". It actually dropped a lot.

Personally liked the expansion, raiding was great and implemented Challenge Modes which i liked, but those remarks are just plain wrong.

Shadowlands has some issues, but it really isn't as bad as people are trying to make it.

Also to OP, why just link a random video from a random youtuber as a thread starter? Can't you form or express your own opinion? im pretty sure it's also against the forum rules, but hey, whatever.

[munkeyinorbit]

MOP = the golden age of WOW (even with a bit "over the top" amount of dailies in launch patch).

Class design = better than 95% classes post-wod.
Class balance = 1000000000000x better than anything right now.
CMs = 10000000x better than M+ (since it was SKILL that matter there.... the only thing people could "tweak" is amount of gems. everything else was disabled = only your skills matter, not your gear)
PVP = it would be stupid to even compare this.

MOP alts = you ding > you farm your gear and you ENJOY THE CONTENT.

Legion, BFA, SL alts = you ding > you farm your:
RNG "legendary" item
RNG "relics" for weps (which were failed attempt to mimic FLAWLESS MOP glyphs)
RNG "azerite" gear (which were failed attempt to mimic FLAWLESS MOP glyphs)
RNG "essence" abilities (which were failed attempt to mimic FLAWLESS MOP glyphs)
RNG "corruption" gear
RNG "conduits" (which were failed attempt to mimic FLAWLESS MOP glyphs)
Soul ash for your "legendary" (lol) item (which were failed attempt to mimic FLAWLESS MOP glyphs + TIER SETS)
Renown (In order to be able to "equip" failed conduits)

AND THEN.... you are left to farm your gear and do WORST THING EVER IMPLEMENTED IN WOW- WEEKLY CHEST SLOT MACHINE! (instead of what we had back in MOP (jp/vp vendors))
RNG

This guy forgets that you earned vp but couldn't get any gear because it was hidden behind reputation. It was a double dip fuck you to the players. Before 5.1, MoP was literally the worst version of wow that there ever was and that was saying something considering it came right after Cata, the worst WoW game that there ever was.

Then there was the true birth of selling dungeon runs. Challenge mode paved the way for the dungeon carry economy we have today.

[shoc]

I haven't played in like two months. Finished the renown grind and peaced out. This is what WoW is now though, since Legion.

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That's exactly what a retcon is. New information that goes against existing information so you can squeeze it into your new narrative. Sure, new information is a thing but there hasn't been much expansion, as there has been erase and replace nowadays.

90% of what people call retcons are only retcons to their headcanon.

[Gaidax]

That's exactly what a retcon is. New information that goes against existing information so you can squeeze it into your new narrative. Sure, new information is a thing but there hasn't been much expansion, as there has been erase and replace nowadays.

Where does it go against existing information pray tell?

90% of what people call retcons are only retcons to their headcanon.

This.

People kneejerk squeal retcon at just about everything.

[Osmeric]

MoP had a serious problem for Friends and Family guilds: they were expected to do LFR as their raids. There was no private group content for such guilds until SoO when they added flex mode (and then they fucked that up in Highmaul in WoD.)

[Molvonos]

Man, I love echo chambers that do nothing to create legitimate conversation.

[Mightytasty]

Careful OP, people on this forum hate content creators & their ideas, even though the majority of the player base agrees with them.

[Kathranis]

you mean recton everything the old writers built

You talking about when they changed the entire cosmology and history of the universe between WC2 and WC3, or when they completely changed the story of the draenei, eredar, Burning Legion, and Sargeras, etc.?

This franchise is built on retcons. I don't get where you guys act like it's something sacred that was never changed before the most recent expansions.

[munkeyinorbit]

Great comment. Spread some hate on the internet. Hate the guy because hes probably more successful in life with money than you are

pathetic

I don't like the guy so I don't watch. What is wrong with guys like him is that people take him too seriously. All he does is takes the topic of the day, does a "rant" about it and then cashes in. I admire somebody that can whip up the gulible people into a frenzy like that. People forgot the first rule of being on the internet. Don't trust anything anyone says. There's always an agenda.

[Deferionus]

So many people calling MOP the "golden age." LOL! Remember the Kung Fu Panda freak outs. Lots of people quit. So many opinions, so little time to care about them. If you enjoy the game, play it, if not, stop or take a break.

Yeah, I enjoyed Cata more than MoP. OP is right though that this 'systems' design has over stayed its welcome. They were near perfect in Legion and god awful in BFA. I think Shadowlands is honestly a better implementation then BFA but they aren't going to recapture Legion where it was fresh and perfectly designed. They are now trying to take something perfectly designed elsewhere and transition it to a place that doesn't work as well. They would have been better off keeping the artifact weapons from Legion and doing an Argus expansion where we continued their use. IMO they've been on a downwards trajectory since the Argus patch because they can't seem to find a direction to really take the game in now.

[Djuntas]

The fun thing is WE ALL KNOW what belluar, asmongold, QQ threads will say before we open them. We all know it...BUT IT NEVER CHANGES =/ Blizzard is dumb.

[Gratz]

I think we need stats on how old players were when MoP was out that think Mop was the Golden Age of WoW.

[FelPlague]

Okay. What does he like most about it?

the killing stuff.

[Kralljin]

You talking about when they changed the entire cosmology and history of the universe between WC2 and WC3, or when they completely changed the story of the draenei, eredar, Burning Legion, and Sargeras, etc.?

I think it's comparing apples to oranges.

The lore between Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 3 was very bare bones and even there, most stuff was rather nebulous to begin with, Sargeras was just some "Daemon lord", not space satan.
The modern "retcons" (most of them aren't even true retcons) however different because they put an extremely different spin on very much established material.

Major example is the Scourge, originally it was stated that the Scourge was effectively created the Kil'jaeden / Dreadlords, modern lore however says it was actually Dreadlords who just copy pasted Maldraxxus.
Scourge Architecture was originally based on Nerubian architecture, which the Scourge adopted after absorbing the Nerubians into the Scourge, now it's actually Maldraxxus themed and *somehow* Nerubians got inspired by Maldraxxus.

The modern (Scourge) has been recontextualized by essentially saying: Nobody who was actually involved in the creation of the Scourge had their own ideas, they just stole it from the Shadowlands.
Which naturally makes those character appear less relevant, there is a big difference between an original creation and essentially just copying an already established concept.

The reason why it is being recontextualized is to beef up the modern lore at the expense of the existing lore.
So that everybody goes "Wow! the Jailer was actually behind all of this and played every cosmic force like a tool", it's extremely diminishing of the existing lore when what a lot of people see as the Genesis of Warcraft Lore (which is the creation of the Burning Legion) isn't because Sargeras lost his way on his own, but was actually set up by a character that didn't even exist within the lore two years ago.

To put this into some context here, the Warcraft franchise was at the time of Warcraft 3 release like 8 years old, the lore that is now being recontextualized by Blizzard is almost 20 years old and i think the biggest crux is, this lore made sense, there was no gaping hole that had to be resolved.

[Zorachus]

I think we need stats on how old players were when MoP was out that think Mop was the Golden Age of WoW.

In my opinion the true golden age of WoW was end of Vanilla and the first two expansions BC / Wrath.

But I put WoW era's into 4 chapters;

- Vanilla / BC / Wrath = classic era and the most populated highest subs time

- Cat = World revamp and a shitty era with the new proc spells no more solid strict rotations

- Mop / Wod = Interesting era with the developers taking risks trying new things.

- Legion / BfA / Shadowlands = Ion era and what modern current WoW is. Started off great with Legion being an A+ expansion, followed by a mediocre expansion grade of C. And the current expansion a D+ so far.

[Big Thanks]

Just play on a Roleplaying server where "people" are the content and there is no "Shadowlands"
There is just "World of Warcraft"

[kaminaris]

Ah the typical manipulative asmon,
"disconnection between devs and playerbase" -> assuming he is the "voice of playerbase".
"listened to the wrong people" -> assuming he is in that "right" part of people
"solving problems players don't have" -> I never had problem with "it" so nobody else should have

He states some obvious things then proceeds to disguise his opinions as support for those obvious stuff.

But there is one thing I could agree, Blizzard did listen to wrong people = streamers. Now suddenly streamers are not happy.