Shadowlands has the least content of any expansion yet

[Argorwal]

No content is obviously hyperbole, but compared to the expansions either side of it, WoD was certainly lacking in things to do.

Shadowlands ending in 9.2 puts it in a similar position - 2 content patches & a total of 3 raids throughout an expansion really is a poor return when compared with anything besides WoD.



Legion might also be a product of WoD being called a lost cause early, giving them more time to develop it. If memory serves, they always said they were ahead of where they needed to be in terms of content development throughout Legion, which might also explain why BfA, for all its flaws, did have quite a lot of content all things considered.

That's a whole lot of mights & maybes, but glass half full n all that

SL will still end with more raid bosses than Cata too, and more patch content. Not sure how that expansion gets a pass.

And would be more raid content than Wrath if Blizzard didn’t take the lazy way out and copy/paste a 15 boss vanilla raid and change some tints on armor.

It sucks SL is cutting a patch, but it puts it more average. Legion, MoP, and BFA stand way above the rest in terms of content. MoP I just wish had more than 6 new dungeons (it also had 3 reskins).

Personally I love class specific content, do legion was amazing for that with the artifact quest and class campaigns and mounts. It’s also pretty much the only expansion to have any real class specific stuff. Probably because when you have to design anything x12 (12 classes) it gets out of hand really quick. A 10 quest chain per class, which would feel short and pathetic, is 120 quests - more than most entire zones.

[roboscorcher]

SL will still end with more raid bosses than Cata too, and more patch content. Not sure how that expansion gets a pass.

And would be more raid content than Wrath if Blizzard didn’t take the lazy way out and copy/paste a 15 boss vanilla raid and change some tints on armor.

It sucks SL is cutting a patch, but it puts it more average. Legion, MoP, and BFA stand way above the rest in terms of content. MoP I just wish had more than 6 new dungeons (it also had 3 reskins).

Personally I love class specific content, do legion was amazing for that with the artifact quest and class campaigns and mounts. It’s also pretty much the only expansion to have any real class specific stuff. Probably because when you have to design anything x12 (12 classes) it gets out of hand really quick. A 10 quest chain per class, which would feel short and pathetic, is 120 quests - more than most entire zones.

True, class-specific stuff is 12x more work than generic stuff. But in the end, we've done generic stuff for so long. The generic 'restore a zone...until you outlevel it' is so tired. Legion was great because class identity was a core philosophy of the expansion. The devs did a whole write-up about it once. Classes has an order hall story, each spec had an artifact to level, etc. This was so good because everything added to our characters' identity. Contrast that to covenants, who were mostly unrelatable to our chars and were a 'forced choice' because of the bis powers.

The next expansion should return to class identity, if not spec identity. Maybe even scrap the generic zone quests entirely and only do class-specific ones. Or do 50-50. With class-specific rewards that transmog farmers will want to farm in the future.

[Toybox]

Hyperbole is dangerous, though. People go around saying stuff like "WoD had nothing to do." You and I know it's not true, the guy saying it knows it's not true. But some guy who didn't play the expansion hears it, takes it at face value, and joins the WoD or even all of WoW hate bandwagon based on this hyperbole. How many people do you think you see on the forums complaining about WoD actually played it, and how many didn't but are repeating the echo chamber.

The overwhelming majority of them? I don't think there's a huge number of players who joined in Legion/BfA who jumped on the WoD-bashing-bandwagon, but I might be wrong.

I'd still take WoD over BfA any day of the week thanks to the solid class gameplay & enjoyable raids, but the expansion overall did lack content.

SL will still end with more raid bosses than Cata too, and more patch content. Not sure how that expansion gets a pass.

And would be more raid content than Wrath if Blizzard didn’t take the lazy way out and copy/paste a 15 boss vanilla raid and change some tints on armor.

It sucks SL is cutting a patch, but it puts it more average. Legion, MoP, and BFA stand way above the rest in terms of content. MoP I just wish had more than 6 new dungeons (it also had 3 reskins).

Personally I love class specific content, do legion was amazing for that with the artifact quest and class campaigns and mounts. It’s also pretty much the only expansion to have any real class specific stuff. Probably because when you have to design anything x12 (12 classes) it gets out of hand really quick. A 10 quest chain per class, which would feel short and pathetic, is 120 quests - more than most entire zones.

It gets a bit of a pass because it's probably the most ambitious expansion ever with the reworking of the old world, but damn, did Cata really only have 29+3 raid bosses? I had to log in & check because it didn't sound right, but wow, you're right. You could argue that the variety in Cata's raid locales are worth more than the extra boss or so, but that's just down to personal preference, & really, fights should be judged on quality moreso than quantity, with the latter only becoming an issue if we're getting a lot less than we should be (which feels like the case as we're losing a patch).

However, Cata also added RBGs, Archaeology (I enjoyed it, leave me alone ), Transmog, Worgens/Goblins, Darkmoon Faire, & 3+2 dungeons post launch (2 being remakes, 3 being original). Shadowlands added... The new dungeon & Torghast? I'd say Cata had arguably more patch content as well as a lot of people only care about dungeons/raids/PvP, but if you're into single-player busywork then I guess the extra daily/world quest zone patch is a positive.

Many of Cata's systems have left a lasting impact on the game, & most of them I'd argue are positive. Shadowlands on the other hand is going to leave nothing but dodgy memories because it's designed in a different way.

(I don't even like Cataclysm all that much compared to other expansions, but it's clearly far ahead of SL in terms of content overall IMO).

[Cthulhu fhtagn]

Yeah no. WoD had nothing. Now we just have a lot of stuff that isnt really compelling to do more than (or even) once. M+ is a huge savior for me personally, but i think the game is completely lacking a long term goal you can work on by yourself. Torghast had a chance to be that. If it wasnt manditory and they could've made it challenging with some really cool reward (a la mage tower) at the end i think the expansion would look very different in hindsight.

Feels like overall the game is just missing a lot of rewards and reasons to play that arent instantly gone in the next patch. "Easy" answer would be to add housing for permanence, but somehow i feel like with everything nowdays they'd spend too little time on it.

[Soeroah]

Pretty sure I already said this the last time I noticed this thread, but the title is just objectively wrong, I'm sorry.

WoD exists, and it's the only expansion I've spent subscribed where I spent more time playing past expansion content than current expansion content, even before the wait for Legion.

Trust me, I get people are frustrated at Shadowlands but you can criticise the content it has without pretending it has less content than the expansion we got one zone and one raid between two content patches.

[PaladinBash]

It has no content, it's just that the mazerats only care about their parses and their Maze+ running over and over again. Briefly they cared about PVP to get gear to strongarm their mazes but once that stopped, back into the grind it went. They aren't really even players. You could just have a big room with nothing in it except one guy and they'd still find ways to flex on each other over it. Shit look at the Mage Tower, an overtuned rework of a fun simple thing with all of the borrowed power and potential upgrades disabled EXCEPT ones that take days to grind in old content that nobody would bother with. Kids ran those for a good week or two, grinding the very best of them, spending hours doing the mage tower despite it being a recolour of a set nobody liked just to flex on lazy kids that said "lol no that's dumb". You know people did that. You personally know them, I am sure, if you still play the game. It is that pathetic and even that is not as shamelessly mazed as the fact people are still doing keys, still grinding IO, still selling boosts to braindead morons. It baffles me that this shit still goes on despite no content. At least rats should want a new maze but it's not the maze they enjoy, it's flexing on other lesser rats and shrieking their hatred and 'superiority' above people that don't bother with their shit at all. It is pathetic.

[cparle87]

Yeah no. WoD had nothing. Now we just have a lot of stuff that isnt really compelling to do more than (or even) once. M+ is a huge savior for me personally, but i think the game is completely lacking a long term goal you can work on by yourself. Torghast had a chance to be that. If it wasnt manditory and they could've made it challenging with some really cool reward (a la mage tower) at the end i think the expansion would look very different in hindsight.

Feels like overall the game is just missing a lot of rewards and reasons to play that arent instantly gone in the next patch. "Easy" answer would be to add housing for permanence, but somehow i feel like with everything nowdays they'd spend too little time on it.

Some people cry "Stop giving us more to do, we'll never be done!" Other people cry "We don't have a long term goal to work towards!" Who is right?

[kaminaris]

Some people cry "Stop giving us more to do, we'll never be done!" Other people cry "We don't have a long term goal to work towards!" Who is right?

Both.

Instead of introducing mind numbingly grinds that takes forever to finish they should introduce medium length, fun to play content because quality > quantity.
Pair that up with not making content obsolete in another patch and people will have their long term goals to aspire.

Good example was chromie scenario. Add couple more of these, make it achievement to "finish all 5" and boom, long term goal that isn't boring af.

Bad example is trying to collect transmogs from rares that spawn on long timer and have rng attached to it so realistically it takes forever and boring AF.

[ArenaDk]

SL will still end with more raid bosses than Cata too, and more patch content. Not sure how that expansion gets a pass.

And would be more raid content than Wrath if Blizzard didn’t take the lazy way out and copy/paste a 15 boss vanilla raid and change some tints on armor.

It sucks SL is cutting a patch, but it puts it more average. Legion, MoP, and BFA stand way above the rest in terms of content. MoP I just wish had more than 6 new dungeons (it also had 3 reskins).

Personally I love class specific content, do legion was amazing for that with the artifact quest and class campaigns and mounts. It’s also pretty much the only expansion to have any real class specific stuff. Probably because when you have to design anything x12 (12 classes) it gets out of hand really quick. A 10 quest chain per class, which would feel short and pathetic, is 120 quests - more than most entire zones.

I dont get how woltk gets a pass either. 50% of raid bosses were reused from old expansion, 20% upscaled models from dungeons.

what else did it have ?

dungeons ? so does shadowlands and even mythic +
raids ? so does shadowlands
arena ? yep also in sl
rated bgs ? oh wait woltk doesnt
pet battle ? nope sorry woltk
world quests ? nope sorry woltk
1 new area ? shadowlands had 2
torghast ? sorry woltk
covernants ? sorry woltk
new progression system for open world ? sorry woltk

should we continue ? old expansions had not even close the content modern expansions have. blizzard gives people more and more content each patch. the issue is with you not them here.

[Toybox]

I dont get how woltk gets a pass either. 50% of raid bosses were reused from old expansion, 20% upscaled models from dungeons.

what else did it have ?

dungeons ? so does shadowlands and even mythic +
raids ? so does shadowlands
arena ? yep also in sl
rated bgs ? oh wait woltk doesnt
pet battle ? nope sorry woltk
world quests ? nope sorry woltk
1 new area ? shadowlands had 2
torghast ? sorry woltk
covernants ? sorry woltk
new progression system for open world ? sorry woltk

should we continue ? old expansions had not even close the content modern expansions have. blizzard gives people more and more content each patch. the issue is with you not them here.

Naxx was played by 1% of the playerbase in Vanilla - The fact it was reused content was practically irrelevant. Ulduar & ICC often top polls of the greatest raids of all time, meanwhile Nathria is one of the most average raids I can remember outside of Sludgefist Mythic, which was a great fight.

Using temporary expansion features like Torghast & Covenants as a plus for Shadowlands when they symbolize the biggest problem with WoW today is crazy to me also. WotLK added gameplay ideas that have lasted for more than 13 years - Nothing Shadowlands has introduced to the game will last 3.

Not to mention the fact the expansions launched more than a decade apart. It'd be like comparing a modern FPS to one from 2007 & going "well it didn't have a battle pass, so it must've been crap - no content!1!1!!", despite the FPS being CoD4. You compare games at the time they were relevant, & WotLK was a much, much better experience in 08-10 than SL is in 20-22, & has left behind a legacy of features to boot. Shadowlands will leave us with nothing but a 2 year box of expansion-only features designed by a short-sighted team with little to no future.

[Tsyplenk]

I dont get how woltk gets a pass either. 50% of raid bosses were reused from old expansion, 20% upscaled models from dungeons.

what else did it have ?

dungeons ? so does shadowlands and even mythic +
raids ? so does shadowlands
arena ? yep also in sl
rated bgs ? oh wait woltk doesnt
pet battle ? nope sorry woltk
world quests ? nope sorry woltk
1 new area ? shadowlands had 2
torghast ? sorry woltk
covernants ? sorry woltk
new progression system for open world ? sorry woltk

should we continue ? old expansions had not even close the content modern expansions have. blizzard gives people more and more content each patch. the issue is with you not them here.

"Content", it's all garbage. The difference is that old expansions had good additions that took time to develop and actually had a thought process go into them, not just "what half assed shite can we rush and add to give the illusion that we've added a lot of stuff?".

There's a reason WoW is a ghost town and has haemorrhaged millions of subs in the last few years, and also why there's a demand for Classic iterations, even though they are mostly horrendously balanced and full of bugs and issues. Age is not the defining factor as well before that joke of an argument gets brought up.

[ArenaDk]

Naxx was played by 1% of the playerbase in Vanilla - The fact it was reused content was practically irrelevant. Ulduar & ICC often top polls of the greatest raids of all time, meanwhile Nathria is one of the most average raids I can remember outside of Sludgefist Mythic, which was a great fight.

Using temporary expansion features like Torghast & Covenants as a plus for Shadowlands when they symbolize the biggest problem with WoW today is crazy to me also. WotLK added gameplay ideas that have lasted for more than 13 years - Nothing Shadowlands has introduced to the game will last 3.

Not to mention the fact the expansions launched more than a decade apart. It'd be like comparing a modern FPS to one from 2007 & going "well it didn't have a battle pass, so it must've been crap - no content!1!1!!", despite the FPS being CoD4. You compare games at the time they were relevant, & WotLK was a much, much better experience in 08-10 than SL is in 20-22, & has left behind a legacy of features to boot. Shadowlands will leave us with nothing but a 2 year box of expansion-only features designed by a short-sighted team with little to no future.

1. Dont defend copy pasting whole raids. they didnt even update or add to it. they could have polished it or something to be more fitting.
2. Ulduar tops the charts….. while ghostcrawler revealed that while it was current content it flopped hard and was the point were he wished raid finder existed to save its activity. Nostalgia and repeating what other say is a strong drug
3.What did woltk introduce ? lfd and cash shop ?
4. temporary content is still content. wtf 99% of stuff you do in wow is temporary
5. launched decades apart ? read the thread title. Expansions are being compared nd how much content they had/ have.

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"Content", it's all garbage. The difference is that old expansions had good additions that took time to develop and actually had a thought process go into them, not just "what half assed shite can we rush and add to give the illusion that we've added a lot of stuff?".

There's a reason WoW is a ghost town and has haemorrhaged millions of subs in the last few years, and also why there's a demand for Classic iterations, even though they are mostly horrendously balanced and full of bugs and issues. Age is not the defining factor as well before that joke of an argument gets brought up.

Cool story, remind me how good classic went after the initial hype. Tbc is also just raid loging. nostalgia is a strong drug

People wanted classic and hyped up others promising it will be hard and have a magical community. It ended with empty servers, elitsm and face roll raids

[MrLachyG]

I don't understand how the same developers behind Legion are behind Shadowlands.

Legion had SO much to do, I still haven't completed all the Legion content.
Fresh questline for each class
new class
quick first little minipatch that put content on that island by theramore and the falcosaurs. nobody even asked for neat little extra content like that
real fast with the raid content. EN into NH, ToV (small mini raid?), into Tomb into Antorus, It is going to have twice as many full raids as SL plus half, plus the invasion point raid bosses in Argus.

Legion had 5 raids, SL has 3... twice as many plus half would mean Legion had 7-8 raids.

[Toybox]

1. Dont defend copy pasting whole raids. they didnt even update or add to it. they could have polished it or something to be more fitting.
2. Ulduar tops the charts….. while ghostcrawler revealed that while it was current content it flopped hard and was the point were he wished raid finder existed to save its activity. Nostalgia and repeating what other say is a strong drug
3.What did woltk introduce ? lfd and cash shop ?
4. temporary content is still content. wtf 99% of stuff you do in wow is temporary

1) They tweaked it, added new items, appearances, etc. It was still a better experience than Nathria by some considerable distance, & was backed up by two solid single-boss raids as well. I didn't do Naxx in Vanilla, so it was totally new to me, & I was happy with it.

2) I played Ulduar at the time & got the Starcaller title during Wrath Raid finder is fine, though - More eyes on something the better, & I'll never be the kind of person to hate on someone because they lack the ability to raid higher-tier content.

3) Multiple difficulty raiding so things like the above don't happen, Death Knights, Inscription, multi-spec...? Shadowlands leaves us with nothing that'll make it to the next expansion, apart from maybe a bit of influence from Torghast going forward.

4) They'd be better set planning on gameplay features that'd stand the test of time, rather than reinventing the wheel just to give the sheep a carrot on a stick to grind each & every patch/expansion. They added M+ just two expansions ago & that's a feature that WoW will carry through to the end of time, yet probably took no more development time than something like designing covenant abilities & conduits for each class, which will be gone in just a few months.

5) Well if we're comparing like that then I might as well throw in Wrath having more zones as a positive for it After all, Icecrown is more relevant as a zone 13 years later than Torghast will be in 10.0.

[ArenaDk]

1) They tweaked it, added new items, appearances, etc. It was still a better experience than Nathria by some considerable distance, & was backed up by two solid single-boss raids as well. I didn't do Naxx in Vanilla, so it was totally new to me, & I was happy with it.

2) I played Ulduar at the time & got the Starcaller title during Wrath Raid finder is fine, though - More eyes on something the better, & I'll never be the kind of person to hate on someone because they lack the ability to raid higher-tier content.

3) Multiple difficulty raiding so things like the above don't happen, Death Knights, Inscription, multi-spec...? Shadowlands leaves us with nothing that'll make it to the next expansion, apart from maybe a bit of influence from Torghast going forward.

4) They'd be better set planning on gameplay features that'd stand the test of time, rather than reinventing the wheel just to give the sheep a carrot on a stick to grind each & every patch/expansion. They added M+ just two expansions ago & that's a feature that WoW will carry through to the end of time, yet probably took no more development time than something like designing covenant abilities & conduits for each class, which will be gone in just a few months.

5) Well if we're comparing like that then I might as well throw in Wrath having more zones as a positive for it After all, Icecrown is more relevant as a zone 13 years later than Torghast will be in 10.0.

1. Barely new items. They removed a few and replaced them and added recolours of other gear instead of some outdated stuff. changed 1 of the horseman to a copy paste model I guess.

2. Yes and you are the minority. But you will tell others how great it was and people repeat it than, while most never did more than the first 3 bosses. How good is a raid that tops the charts out of nostalgia that other influenced you too? Ulduar was a good raid yes, but its being voted top for the wrong reasons. Same as people having had delusions of Naxx 40 until classic. However Iam confident that Ulduar will have a more fair chance with its rerelease

3. difficulties is a fair point and deathknights. multi specc doesnt exist anymore and inscriptions is…. well deadweight wow drags with it like most other new professions

4. You are delusional if you think torghast isnt here to stay. It wont look the same just like follower boards evolved they will continue on that idea.

5. Icecrown was the last time relevant thanks to Shadowlands , wasnt it ?

[MrLachyG]

Pet tamer in each zone. 3 rares in Highmaul who dropped resources and pets. 1-2 rares in each zone that dropped mounts. Rukhmar weekly for mount. Tanaan had over a dozen pet challenges, 4 rares that drop toys, 4 rares that mounts, and a rep to grind for more mounts/toys. Then there's keeping your garrison stocked like lumber or leather/fur. Doing apexis dailies for pets/mounts/toys/to trigger the assaults for more pets/mounts/toys. Random heroic for gold and resources. Mythic dungeons once a week.

The only way anyone can say that WoD didn't have content is to either be a liar or someone with special mental gymnastics who selectively ignore everything they don't like as somehow not existing.

I mean yeah you're right but the current argument is that WoD had far less to do than SL. which is undeniably true. Literally everything you listed SL has but it also has more of those things. Then it has stuff on top of that which WoD simply did not have

[Toybox]

1. Barely new items. They removed a few and replaced them and added recolours of other gear instead of some outdated stuff. changed 1 of the horseman to a copy paste model I guess.

2. Yes and you are the minority. But you will tell others how great it was and people repeat it than, while most never did more than the first 3 bosses. How good is a raid that tops the charts out of nostalgia that other influenced you too? Ulduar was a good raid yes, but its being voted top for the wrong reasons. Same as people having had delusions of Naxx 40 until classic. However Iam confident that Ulduar will have a more fair chance with its rerelease

3. difficulties is a fair point and deathknights. multi specc doesnt exist anymore and inscriptions is…. well deadweight wow drags with it like most other new professions

4. You are delusional if you think torghast isnt here to stay. It wont look the same just like follower boards evolved they will continue on that idea.

5. Icecrown was the last time relevant thanks to Shadowlands , wasnt it ?

They spruced Naxx up enough for it to be an enjoyable first raid of an expansion experience. I know a lot of people were disappointed at the time by them reusing it, but eh.

Dual spec laid the foundations for the free spec swapping we have nowadays, but you're right, technically it isn't in the game anymore. Inscription would be in a better place if they'd managed it better, but no-one is going to get everything right. It felt great at the time though.

Torghast won't be a feature in 10.0, the same way the "GAMECHANGING REVOLUTIONARY AI!!!" of Island Expeditions led to absolutely nothing in the end. Just another expansion feature designed for the short-term rather than the long-term. It's no wonder they keep running out of time.

Touche on Icecrown though, you got me there Still, go forward a few years, & I reckon you'll be finding more people in Icecrown than in Torghast, unless the latter is tuned to be an absolutely ridiculously free leveling experience.

[Tsyplenk]

Cool story, remind me how good classic went after the initial hype. Tbc is also just raid loging. nostalgia is a strong drug

People wanted classic and hyped up others promising it will be hard and have a magical community. It ended with empty servers, elitsm and face roll raids

Shouldn't really have to remind you considering they brought out TBC and will bring out Wrath, I think that's testament to what a blinding success classic servers have been. Empty servers? Won't even bother addressing the blatant delusion considering it's doing far better than retail where servers were connected and had CRZ implemented years ago.

[Asrialol]

"a dozen hours" and people are finished with the content. Now...you get to keep PAYING for a content drought for what USED to be around 5 months or so per patch (until the final patch which is 9-14 months long). SL's is even worse. Longer waits with less content and BAD content at that.
If people are waiting around for 10.0 to change anything for this game...get ready to be disappointed. Just like you were in BFA and just like you are in SL's.

WoW is on life support. And it isn't going to get off. Also blizzard employee's attacking paying customers shows that they don't deserve our money anyway.

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Yeah, I liked BfA better then SL's. Know how I know? As much problems as BfA had...I didn't quit. SL's got me to quit, to include the people I brought back to the game during legion.

Then don't pay. Your acting as if your money is special or if you're somehow unique. You're not - stop playing, the wheels keeps spinning without you, as you can see.

Consumers biggest flaw is thinking they're special.

[Cracked]

I'm a bit unsure what to think about the last few pages of this thread... People complain that raiding is all they can do on one hand and compare how rich expansions were by comparing #raids or bosses on the other hand.

Like the guy calling Cata out for having few raid bosses... If you were there from release to halfway through Firelands you can't even be serious. The raids were the cherry on top as it should be, not the primary metric.