Originally Posted by
Dervrak
As someone that has been in every beta since WotLK and already knew the expansions like the back of my hand on on release day, I purposely opted out of the beta for Shadowlands, and I even tried to avoid reading too much about the story and lore. I'm more of a casual player these days so felt no need to rush to level on day one to start grinding for raid gear. So all I had going in was a general idea of things like the Covenants and zones but beyond that I wanted to come in as new player, taking leveling slow, do all the side quests, etc.
So my impressions so far being (what I would guess) is about 1/2 way through Bastion, so still pretty early:
1. Kudo's to Blizzard on what was, by far, the smoothest launch I have ever seen. I logged in around 5:30 EST, other than a bit of lag in the Stormwind auction house, everything ran as smooth as butter, 6:00 rolled around, I got the quest, jumped into Shadowlands. No lag, no disconnects, enough instances that there was no feeling of being overcrowded.
2. Starter quest in the Maw was ok, I suppose. Seemed a bit too much like the WoD intro quest, with the party racing to get away from the bad guys. Also a bit long and tedious because of no mounts allowed, by the end I was thinking, "Ok...enough of this, lets get into the real game now."
3. I like the layout of Oribos, one big circle like my favorite cites Ironforge and Dalaran. Very easy to navigate. A welcome relief after Dazar'alor and Boralus, where after two years I STILL had to ask guards for direction to find some things I didn't use regularly.
4. Story so far is holding my attention. Shadowlands is the first expansion that feel like you are in alien world. Even WoD version of Dreanor felt a bit familiar since it was basically just a undestroyed version of Outland.
5. Leveling quests are about the same as always, kill eight (insert generic trash mob here), gather six widgets etc. I was hoping for a bit more variety, like they would go the Elder Scrolls Online quest chain route. But after 16 years I've pretty much resigned myself to murdering trash mobs and gathering widgets.
The Funny:
1. One of the few times I have ever laughed out loud in WoW was when my Warlock wearing his full suit of corrupted Sha armor from Pandaria, wielding a nasty look skull scythe with an unholy glow, with his Succubus by his side arrives in Bastion and the Kyrian girl runs up and say "Congratulations! Only the most pure, uncorrupt and just souls make it to Bastion". I could just picture my Warlock looking behind him and saying, "Uhh lady....you talking to me???"
2. Maybe it's because I was an 80's kid, but I can't help hearing "The Maw" pronounced as "The Mall" and every time I hear it I picture souls being trapped for all eternity in a large shopping center with generic elevator music playing. So I got a chuckle when I saw one of the designers at Blizz must have had the same idea when I got attacked by a "Maw Rat". (Mall Rat was an 80's term for teens who hung out at the mall all the time).