Soo...Is Shadowlands any good?

[Mightytasty]

Yes, it's good. Not great. Saying it's the best thing since WOTLK is absolutely damning.

Someone reading that expecting anything of the quality of MoP, would be devastated.

It's better than MoP. The only standout zone in Pandaria was Jade Forest; all four Shadowlands leveling zones are fantastic. MoP at max level on release was a daily quest grindfest that people hated. And Shadowlands class gameplay is just as fun as MoP imo, except without the homogenization.

MoP is the most nostalgia-goggles expansion of all time.

[Ringthane]

Seems to be a couple of people mentioning they didn't get much enjoyment there. Is there a reason why? Makes me wonder what is wrong with Ardenweald.

Nothing's wrong with it. The things I didn't like were a) it feels too much like Val'Sharah (or whatever the zone was in Legion), and b) it felt way too short.

[Mightytasty]

Nothing's wrong with it. The things I didn't like were a) it feels too much like Val'Sharah (or whatever the zone was in Legion), and b) it felt way too short.

Ardenweald was extremely confusing to me. They didn't really make it clear why the Drust was invading Ardenweald, or what the Drust actually is. Maybe it's because I'm Horde and never played through Drustvar? Even so, the story needs to be more self-contained.

[ReleaseDay]

Too early to tell but this

I'm enjoying The lack of a new class sucks though.

[Chat]

Almost finished the second zone and my group of friends are finding it hard to keep going. It’s really difficult to find what is truly the problem but we’re all feeling it. Just super boring, which is strange because I had just leveled a new character in preparation and had a blast in all the old zones.

hmm... a group of friends and not one can place a finger on what is making you dislike the game?

[LordVargK]

yeah i think that's one of great things added to modern wow, wow never had that much voice acting
while some are campy (duh), tbh a lot seems actually care and passionate, long are gone days of Jill's sandwich i hope

Yeah, VA was a nice touch. Though at some points I really thought they could have used some better voice actors. The Abominations in Maldraxxus did not sound very... scary. They sounded pretty human, could have used a lot more grunting. And the one fairy in Ardenwald really threw me off in the first cutscene with the winter queen by lisping incredibly hard. Things like that were all over the campaign.
Yes, the VA was a huge upgrade for the questing experience, but Blizz has room to improve here.

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Ardenweald was extremely confusing to me. They didn't really make it clear why the Drust was invading Ardenweald, or what the Drust actually is. Maybe it's because I'm Horde and never played through Drustvar? Even so, the story needs to be more self-contained.

No, you would not be that much wiser if you had played through Drustvar. The origin of the Drust were not explained there and probably will be part of the ardenweald covenant campaign. I assume.

[Elkfingers]

So you are someone who complains about complainers. Funny. Just put them on ignore if you don't like what they have to say. There will always be people with different view points. That's the internet for you, sir.

I mean if you actually thought that putting people on ignore in situations where you disagree with them was the solution, you wouldn't be responding to me.

What a totally self-defeating point.

[sephrinx]

Dungeons are great so far.

There are some that seem to have too much trash, and there are some annoying mechanics, but overall they're very good.

[dope_danny]

A friend bought me a copy after he got a new gaming laptop and jumped back into wow after not touching it since wrath and wanted someone to play with. So i have played it for a while with no plans to buy it, no hype or built up expectations and i'm currently lvl.58 in Ardenweald after doing everyquest i could in Bastion and Maldraxxus and overall? its fine but it feels unfinished. Not super unfinished but there is a noticeable lack of quests, npcs and especially quest variety. I think in the first hour of Ardenweald i got a quest to collect animacorns at least three times. Thats like the worst quest design of vanilla when there wasn't enough xp going around so they copy pasted a few quests and changed the wording around to pad the experience.

Graphics wise its fine, the cutscene animators do a good job and the story is the same 'we exhausted the rts plot so lets try and add a new power tier that reads like fan fic' i expected but if i had a completely nuetral opinion on it right now? i would say just wait till patches add more content as the launch quest content is pretty barebones and feels like it needed another 2 months in the oven just to add more quests and npcs to zones that ultimately feel quite barren.

Just go in expecting a lot more Eastern Plaguelands or Hellfire penninsula and less Drustvar and Stormsong Valley in your questing experience. Its going to be slow going for now.

-oh but the two dungeons i've done are good fun. Feels like the devs have taken a lot of inspiration from FFXIV's dungeons and boss fights. Particularly the plague lady in the second dungeon. Anyone thats done some of the Stormblood dungeons will recognise that entire fight in a far less green and gooey content but of course as someone who plays XIV i'm going to enjoy them when it is wearing that design inspiration on its sleeve. I could also see people used to WoW's more static less movement heavy dungeon bosses finding it annoying.

-double oh, the lack of quests seems all the more evident when so many treasure chests on the map don't lead to actual treasure just an icon from a previous expansion thats like "missing bag, take to npc for 2 bars worth of xp and a thank you" and theres a LOT more of those i've found than the one or two with gear or a toy in or something. It really feels like the more i see the more i can confidently say the expansion while okay was not ready to ship in terms of quests.

[Eggroll]

I mean if you actually thought that putting people on ignore in situations where you disagree with them was the solution, you wouldn't be responding to me.

What a totally self-defeating point.

Not at all. Because I'm not the one with the cynical opinions about MMO-C forums posters. You are.

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Ardenweald was extremely confusing to me. They didn't really make it clear why the Drust was invading Ardenweald, or what the Drust actually is. Maybe it's because I'm Horde and never played through Drustvar? Even so, the story needs to be more self-contained.

I'm an Alliance player, and even I didn't understand why the Drust were even there. Drust are the natives of Drustvar who were defeated by the colonizing humans. It's a story similar to the European colonization of the North America or Australia. Just genocide the natives to take their lands. No wonder they are pissed off :-)

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I can't be the only one to realize the Shadowlands loading screen is gender divided, am I? To the left you have all the good gals, to the right you have all the bad guys... Kinda stupid. Hard to imagine it's accidental. *tinfoilhat*

[Cloudmaker]

So far so good. I'm enjoying questing and the story so far. Haven't tried dungeons yet.

[The Saar]

Honestly... I really don’t get what people are complaining about. Not even a week in, and I can already tell this much better than bfa lol.

Ofc ppl can and should express their concerns and so, but cmon... this is a really nice upgrade from bfa!

[schwarzkopf]

For the people like myself, who aren't playing it. Is it any good?

It is good, but unlike previous expansions I'm pretty starved for content in the first week - waiting for next week to do more.

Just logging on to do calling once a day pretty much, can't solo past level 2 Torghast and dungeon queues are massive so can't do them either.

I remember getting a solid 2+ weeks before getting to this point in BfA and Legion.

[Osmeric]

Well, I got to level 60. The story and setting are not doing it for me. I'll play a bit more to try end game systems, but from what I know they aren't looking good to me either. The extra abilities seem at best meh and at worst annoying needless frills and complexity.

I'll be telling the guild master to drop me from the raiding team, since I'll likely won't be staying subbed. It doesn't feel like I'll be missing anything I'll regret if I stop playing.

[CalamityHeart]

I've finished the base questing experience and I was really impressed with it all around. Everything about all the zones, from the art to the music is absolutely fucking gorgeous. There's a scene near the beginning of Ardenweald where you're lifted up into the air and are able to see the entire zone all around you for a few moments, and it was easily one of the most memorable sights of the expansion thus far. Blew me right away.

I've been through six out of the eight dungeons so far, and all of them I've really enjoyed. None of the ones I did stood out as the "Not this one" dungeon, but it remains to be seen if Sanguine Halls or Theatre of Pain are going to be that for me.

There's nothing wrong with renown. I don't know what people are talking about when they say it's convoluted. Anima, too, I don't have too much of a problem with. It's hard to put my finger on it, but gather anima has a very different feel from gather azerite, in a good way. Maybe it's because everything is fresh and I'm not tired of it yet, but if collecting 1000 anima is like the weekly goal for renown gain, I would be absolutely a-okay with that, as it stands.

Conduits and Soulbinds are as intuitive and non-complex as I expected them to be, and I like them. I absolutely fail to see how anyone could possibly be overwhelmed by this sort of system.

The story has hooked me. I'm looking forward to putting alts into other covenants to see the other sides of the story, but right now, I haven't been disappointed by what I've seen. In terms of my own personal experience with the story, I would put Ardenweald > Bastion = Revendreth > Maldraxxus. But none of the stories are weak. BFA's story didn't hold my attention at all, but I'm really really eager to see what comes of all of what's happening here in the Shadowlands.

Overall, great start of an expansion. If Blizzard keeps this up, it'll be a winner.

[dexx]

Just go in expecting a lot more Eastern Plaguelands or Hellfire penninsula and less Drustvar and Stormsong Valley in your questing experience. Its going to be slow going for now.

I agree that the storylines are basic. But not slow since leveling goes by quickly. The storylines in Legion and BFA were more engaging for sure.

[woopytywoop]

Small question and I don't want to open a new thread.

What classes/specs are fotm atm (both PvE and PvP and for healer/dps/tanking)?

I quit a year ago and before that I have played shaman since wotlk (started in BC), did a lot of high end raiding over the years, but for now will just be playing casually.

[Sagenod]

Really dumb for them not to bring in a Necromancer or Dark Ranger class into this expansion. Those two classes completely fit the theme, especially with Sylvanas and the Lich King playing prominent roles. Zero reason for them not to be introduced here.

Well we already know why, which was the customization revamp. You know what would be crazy though and this may be asking for too much, but what if they introduced Dark Ranger during one of the patches? Like, perhaps after Sylvanas is dealt with in whatever way that may be and following that she finally gives the ability to create Dark Rangers to the Horde and Alliance. That would not only be super unexpected but would also extend the life of the expansion. Think about it, if we waited until 9.2 or 9.3 for the Dark Ranger, that would have pushed back the amount of time people have to play with it by like a year maybe? That would be brilliant to combat content drought, from my perspective.

By the way, if they add Dark Rangers I doubt we'll ever see Necromancers. You mentioned at one point Shadowlands feels like the second nail in the coffin for Necromancers, well the Dark Ranger would be the final nail in the coffin. And I personally think DR would be better than Necro. Furthermore, with Black Arrow certainly going to DR in this hypothetical scenario, they would have to fulfill the "skeleton army" archetype that Necros are often pictured as filling. I, for one, would love to see this happen.

[Henx]

I looked through the beginning of this thread and people seem well divided, which is of course expected.

I dinged 60 today and chose my covenant and I have really enjoyed this far. The story was amazing in my opinion. I have always liked linear paths when leveling, seems to flow better or something, and this time I really invested time into reading the descriptions of the quests and not just having an overall understanding of the story. So, to me the leveling was amazing and I think leveling an alt in the same way can be quite nice too since I will be "able" to go faster through it without having to put time into the story. But I agree that it would be nice to have more choices, to just choose between campaign and "random" leveling for alts seems a little bit too little, but difficult to tell before I have tried.

I'm not that familiar with the endgame content yet but it seems enjoyable thus far. They have put more focus on the RP in MMORPG and while the majority of the players may not be roleplaying, it is still a nice aspect.

And as many have stated, it is too early to judge the expansion, except maybe the leveling experience. This might be the best expansion ever or the worst, it can really go either way. WoD had great potential and was a complete shitshow according to many and as far as I remember Legion was not that hyped and it turned out to be great (according to many). New expansions deserve a lot of scepticism, but I think it's fair to say that many of us are very quick to judge when it comes to new content in WoW.

I like the Maw this far. Seems like a scary place and with some unique things, and while not being able to mount up is annyoing I think it adds to the place's scary aura.

Regarding threads like this, it is wise to remember that the players want different things. Some hate linear questing, some like it. Some like Ardenweald, some hate it. Some think WotLK was one of the best expansions and some can't understand what was so great about it (me)!

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Leveling alts and choosing different covenants seems also like a nice thing, then there is a different story and not completely the same thing on every character.

[PingPong]

the fact that I don't need to do like 50 world quest is already better then bfa,I just hope blizzard keep it this way and don't introduce stuff like the stupid ap grind and essence