9.0 General Discussion

[Revamp Man]

Okay so we passed by the 2020 page, that means that every single page equals to a whole year we need to wait for the alpha! DONT LET THAT HAPPEN!

Nah we just have to speculate about the game in that year

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Shadowlands being a void expac is NOT verifiable through announcements from blizzard at Blizzcon, or interviews

Does he say it’s a void expansion?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Even if they started alpha mid-April and Shadowlands were to release mid-Oct that would still give them a larger testing time (~6 months) than BFA.

Thing is, they still have a large amount of time. I think it's just after how BFA went more people want to be involved, and earlier, in the feedback/testing phase of Shadowlands.

We just don't know if Blizzard cares for having that.

Essences sorta continues to show they care. Its just a matter of when they are able to implement the changes via feedback. I think people just have this weird impression(Not you) how game dev works and thinks they can just take out Azerite armor and slap something else in and call it day. I'm sure Blizzard wishes thats how it works...but.. it doesn't



P.S. I don't like Azerite Armor any less then anyone here but it would take a lot more to fix BFA then just slapping essences on and removing Azerite armor(Have to redo the rewards as well etc etc).

[Revamp Man]

so as a quick recap of what we know about shadowlands

1. new leveling system

- new players or players who havent experienced the BFA story on a character will level through BFA from 10-50
- the 1-10 experience is either the racial leveling or the new exiles reach scenario which will be optional to all except new players
- players will be able to level all alts through any content scaling 10-50 being able to switch partway through
- for alts "chromie time" will be how you level through all content and it scaling except for raids as far as we know

2. Alts

- Once an alt starts their shadowlands experience you will be able to level through any new zone in any order
- alts will get access to choosing a covenant immediately
- alts within the same covenant will have access to the mains cosmetics from the same covenant

3. shadowlands zones

- there will be a linear leveling story arc
- all players will start off in bastion at first
- war mode will still be available
- each zone while leveling will give you the covenant ability to test before capping
- somehow they will all connect to oribos
- 4 leveling zones
- 1 max level zone
- the max level zone has mechanics designed to make your time in there dangerous
- the longer you are in the zone the more often you will be attacked by its denizens
- dying in the maw is "different"
- the maw has torghast
4. covenants

- each covenant will have specific class abilties and one utility ability shared between all classes
- each covenant has a campaign during which you unlock soulbinds and meet important characters
- to advance through your covenant campaign and unlock new soulbind tree points you need anima
- there is a cap on how much anima you can use to get power upgrades seemingly only being soulbind points with the current info
- all anima earned after the power cap is used towards cosmetics such as pets and mounts possibly including toys
- you can swap covenants but it will be a bit difficult similar to swapping aldor and scryer
- swapping will not remove the access to your soulbinds but merely swap the covenant abilities you currently have and the access to cosmetics
- armor is assumed to be given once you finish the campaign
- alts get to start the campaign and get the world quests at level 50 as soon as they come to shadowlands

5. classes

- DKs have their own intro scenario and like allied races and DH start at level 10
- most classes are getting abilities returning to their base toolkit
- no new talent row but new talents are going to replace some abilities that are being made baseline
- no new class
- no class reworks have been announced
- each class gets a class specific not spec specific ability from each covenant

6. instanced content

- 8 dungeons
- 4 leveling dungeons and 4 max level
- currently no idea if they are changing M+
- torghast is the new rogue-like instance
- first raid in revendreth
- 10 boss first raid

7. Torghast

- scalable 1-5 players
- constantly changes
- each new floor has new bosses and trash
- power ups are found through exploration and completing each floor
- these power ups are both generic and spec specific but only last for that run
- rewards from the runs are based on how many floors you complete
- the rewards include gear and materials for your legendaries which you craft
- there is no timer
- we currently do not know how it is gated


if i forgot anything im sorry lol but this information is all confirmed by blizzard by either interviews or blizzcon

I don’t even see the word “void” appear

[razorpax]

Raid should honestly open early-mid november. That way the holidays are free (mid-Dec to mid-Jan). Having patches/raids around those times are just terrible, they leave too huge gaps of major content (either halting a raid release or a major patch release).

you figure two weeks after launch the raid opens and 3 weeks after raid opens the race should be over

so the first week of october earliest release because we have to deal with thanksgiving and that effects not just we the players but also the developers because blizzard gives holiday vacation

[Nyel]

I think they are doing major redesign of expansion systems and that's what is taking so long.

I mean... what if Shadowlands pre-orders are really bad. So bad that they're indeed aiming for a course correction in many ways, many more than they deemed necessary back during the announcement. I pre-ordered every expansion, even BfA, because of the allied races. But Shadowlands? Couldn't care less honestly, being able to play a Vulpera or Gnome Dead Knight is so meaningless that the entire pre-order process with the sparse information we got doesn't make much sense.

I think we all have to agree that the announcement was weak, the presented material was weak and the overall features were weak as well. Plus the outrage of no new class, coming from BfA which is an ill-received expansion and the Sylvanas stuff being out of control in a negative way and continuing in Shadowlands. It just might add up and they finally decided it's time to do some major changes that weren't planned.

Or you know... nothing's wrong and they are just slow. Release was already planned for Q4 and now it's more December than October.

Or last but not least, Corona is having a bigger influence on all of this.

We really don't know what's going on and we might never know.

[Sharby]

I mean... what if Shadowlands pre-orders are really bad. So bad that they're indeed aiming for a course correction in many ways, many more than they deemed necessary back during the announcement.

I think we all have to agree that the announcement was weak, the presented material was weak and the overall features were weak as well. Plus the outrage of no new class, coming from BfA which is an ill-received expansion and the Sylvanas stuff being out of control in a negative way and continuing in Shadowlands. It just might add up and they finally decided it's time to do some major changes that weren't planned.

No one on this forum will ever agree on any of the things you just said, I do though.



However I don't think thats the case here, it might just be likely there are no rules to their dev schedule and we are seeing things that aren't there. Meaning alpha isn't very close.

Negative perception or at least what appears to be negative perception probably wouldn't put a dent in their plans because they know most people will just play anyways.

Unless a mass unsubbing occurs like WoD days nothing drastic will be done. BFA's end is a lot more successful than WoD and MoP's were.

[Nyel]

Unless a mass unsubbing occurs like WoD days nothing drastic will be done. BFA's end is a lot more successful than WoD and MoP's were.

WoDs... yes. MoPs? No. I even doubt that BfA is doing better than WoD in their respective last months. Classic inflated the revenue so it's hard to tell by the numbers but it doesn't look to good for BfA in comparison to WoD.

Edit: they won't stop this trend with a rushed expansion. They knew this right after WoD and made almost everything right with Legion. We need exactly that again.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

We don't need a new class.... I mean for fucks sake, its like people here think "No big planet size feature"= bad expansion, I mean its fine to add a big new feature but...feature overload should be something to avoid.

[therumblings]

We don't need a new class.... I mean for fucks sake, its like people here think "No big planet size feature"= bad expansion, I mean its fine to add a big new feature but...feature overload should be something to avoid.

Have to agree on this. Considering every new feature since MoP has been mostly a fail for me, perhaps nothing game-changingly new is better. Still hate the covenant rentals though.

[Nerovar]

We don't need a new class.... I mean for fucks sake, its like people here think "No big planet size feature"= bad expansion, I mean its fine to add a big new feature but...feature overload should be something to avoid.

We had feature overload for the last two expansions and the game really suffered from it.

[therumblings]

We had feature overload for the last two expansions and the game really suffered from it.

This. Garrison, Artifacts, Islands, Warfronts, Azerite, all failed for me.

Just give me MoP

[Archmage Alodi]

They do and it is. The NDA is included in the contract when they take the job at Blizzard.

I meant non-employees

[Chickat]

WoD Alpha started April 3 and WoD launched November 13th. I am finding some articles saying testing started in June though. Am I remembering right that they tried to start Alpha in April but something went wrong and delayed the actual Alpha 3 months? If so, WoD only got 5 months of actual testing, so we could still see a June Alpha/beta with a 2020 release if they cut back testing time.

[Hitei]

We don't need a new class.... I mean for fucks sake, its like people here think "No big planet size feature"= bad expansion, I mean its fine to add a big new feature but...feature overload should be something to avoid.

People will be people.

Torghast is a feature on par with most other expansion major features, and has the potential to be carried forward as a regular endgame feature beyond Shadowlands. Even if we completely ignore the soulbind and ability parts of Covenants, they are basically Class Halls + Suramar/nightfallen campaign combined, with more abundant rewards. Honestly I think this entire "no big feature" thing basically just stems from the feature trailer not really doing a good job of showing what either one was.

[Asphyx22]

I suspect we could be in for a more fleshed out alpha or even maybe a beta when it does launch. They've been taking much longer than before, and I doubt it will have nothing to show for it.

I expect an October pre-patch and November release for Shadowlands.

[George Costanza]

I think preach mentioned we might see something in a few hours on allcraft regarding alpha, either that or it was something else about blizzcon 2019.

[FlemmMinis]

Oh hey it's the fake leaker guy

He is starting to rehabilitate himself tho. The shitpost is strong in this one.

[MrGMYT]

I think preach mentioned we might see something in a few hours on allcraft regarding alpha, either that or it was something else about blizzcon 2019.

they are 2 very different things...

[George Costanza]

they are 2 very different things...

Yeah but he mentioned datamining and in a few hours and pets and stuff so i dont know.

[Voidwielder]

Yeah heard something similiar and ''in a few hours''.

But then again, that just might be stream confusion. That happens a lot. I mean, how many work hours does the East coast have left?