Soo...Is Shadowlands any good?

[Willias]

There are some story telling aspects where you can tell Blizzard doesn't know how to craft a story.

Like, the main character in WoW is an emotionless personality-less blob. That's fine, it gives the story writers something to work with to allow the player to feel attached to the story. An easy way to do this, is craft a character that is not a blob, and allow the player to react through their lens.

This is not how Shadowlands works. We're some amazing divine force at this point, and we alone travel from each realm of death and see each of these crazy places through our own eyes and more or less have nothing to react alongside. So what happens? EVERYTHING SEEMS NORMAL.

I'm in some kind of crazy blue and gold holy place full of angels that wipe souls of their memories and SOMEHOW THIS SEEMS NORMAL? Because the only character I have to react through (since the main character is a personality-less muppet) is some other angel lady and her friend, and this is just another day of the week to these guys.

They also apparently figured out I was a mortal at some point that I don't remember them realizing that, because they sure didn't know at first. Also how did I know that Uther is Uther, since now he's a blue angel dude and really doesn't look like Uther any more? And how do I know that he's Uther the Lightbringer, and not some other dude named Uther?

[Biomega]

Same as always.

Story and questing are shit.

Dungeons (and presumably raiding) are great.

That's the WoW formula.

[Xorzor]

At the moment it's borderline unplayable, what with all the crap going on since the launch transition: crashes, freezes, getting thrown into the void, game hangs when landing, lag bogging down combat, hangs at the loading screen for dungeons....need I go on? (rhetorical question).

It's a shame that every other MMO is lame. Yes even FF14.

[EyelessCrow]

Not going to say it's shit but it is not Warcraft to me, it has no feel of Warcraft, the whole experience felt hollow. None of the sprinkled in characters of old had any impact on me, you could exchange them with *random NPC 182476* and it wouldn't change the story in the least. In fact aside from UI elements, if you did that you could remove "World of Warcraft" from the title and just call it "Shadowlands" and call it a different game and you wouldn't be able to tell it was supposed to be in the Warcraft universe. I find I don't care about any of the characters. I was interested in Maldraxxis and Ardenweald when the game came out, Maldraxxis feels like an empty husk, and not in the way I imagine it was supposed to. Arenweald is an entire joke zone which at first I hated but it actually got me to chuckle during the play.

Also I got sick and fucking tired of running dungeons on my DK and hunter and getting NO loot at all. It's not enough data to make any solid conclusions that drop rates were nerfed so people would keep playing but it certainly felt like it to me. Doing the covenant quests for zones and getting trash? Really? I don't care if it's 1k worth of trash, it feels like it's all stick and no carrot. That actually sums up Shadowlands for me so far, it's all a mind numbing slog to get nothing in return. After BFA and my dwindeling interest in the game during that expansion, I think I'm over WoW finally. I have absolutely zero urge to play Shadowlands, I was sick of it by Tuesday afternoon. I'm a World of Crack addict since the end of vanilla...I'm almost mad I don't have that urge anymore, I kinda feel lost lol. Is this the maw?

[Itori]

I really enjoyed the story and thought it was really well written and made you feel like you were actually a part of saving the world. The zones were also very well crafted, you could feel the theme and just had to stop and take in the beauty of each zone.

My biggest complaint was it felt tedious asf, i usually do all quests in a zone before i leave but this time around, the side quests seemed to take forever due to stupid drop rates or just taking too long to end, and blizzards scaling made it feel like the better my gear the weaker i was. I was noticing in revendreth i had to kill things one at a time to keep from being overwhelmed.

[Aureli]

Bosses can drop more than one item, at least in heroics. I’ve seen it just now.

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Imo 90% of the people you’re going to see complaining about this expansion are people who don’t know what they want, or follow hate trains.

This is a damn good expansion

If you take a look in this topic, 90percent of people who likes this expansion are guys who didnt even finished lvling...
I never complained about single WoW expansion, but there is seriously lack of content atm and game is really unfinished. I lvled up, completed my whole story line until the next week, i completed my 2 weekly quests, both layers 3 in torghast and i did run mythic dungeons. All of that took me about 18 hours of play time. And Im done with the all expansion content for my main character in week 1.
I can just take other char and do the same shit with another toon...

There is nothing I can farm for any other progress or things I should do. Im just 4 days in a new expansion and still I got problem with finding any new content...

[Osmeric]

Literally every expansion is cool for the first 3 weeks.

Pretty much every MMO is cool for the first three weeks. Sunk cost and wishful thinking are powerful things.

We will see how it goes from here, but if there's significant loss of players it's very grim news for the future of WoW, and of Blizzard. The game is already on an apparent downward path where revenue loss leads to cuts in the dev budget (as judged by the shrinkage of the game over recent expansions), and that spiral will only accelerate if things get worse. I suspect many of the departures at Blizzard are due to internal knowledge of this situation.

[Aureli]

For killing 900k rare elite in the Maw i just got awarded by 20gold and grey item sellable for another 40g. And thats like the story of this exp...

[Nyel]

One major problem of Shadowlands is getting from point A to B at max level. Some graveyards are so far away, traversal on ground mounts in zones like Revendreth is horrible (or The Maw not even possible) and a lot of world quests are so spread out... and then you have no whistle. I have no idea who at Blizzard thought it would be a good idea to go so many steps backwards when it comes to traveling. It's really, really bad.

[Xorzor]

One major problem of Shadowlands is getting from point A to B at max level. Some graveyards are so far away, traversal on ground mounts in zones like Revendreth is horrible (or The Maw not even possible) and a lot of world quests are so spread out... and then you have no whistle. I have no idea who at Blizzard thought it would be a good idea to go so many steps backwards when it comes to traveling. It's really, really bad.

We should be able to fly to get back to our corpse. Why should ghosts obey the laws of physics is beyond me!

A short quest to get a whistle for the Shadowlands zones (excluding the Maw and Orobis of course) would be convenient too.

[Depakote]

Being forced into doing the campaign is painful. I could honestly care less about the whole "why are we here" nonsense. Point out whoever we need to kill and get on with it. Never played WoW for a "online single player RPG" like experience.

So you play a mmorpg and don't care about the story... Maybe World of Warcraft isn't for you.

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One major problem of Shadowlands is getting from point A to B at max level. Some graveyards are so far away, traversal on ground mounts in zones like Revendreth is horrible (or The Maw not even possible) and a lot of world quests are so spread out... and then you have no whistle. I have no idea who at Blizzard thought it would be a good idea to go so many steps backwards when it comes to traveling. It's really, really bad.

Oh no, you have to walk to your corpse! Maybe use that time walking back to your dead body to figure out what you did wrong so that you won't die again.

[Nyel]

We should be able to fly to get back to our corpse. Why should ghosts obey the laws of physics is beyond me!

A short quest to get a whistle for the Shadowlands zones (excluding the Maw and Orobis of course) would be convenient too.

Yes, I think as ghosts or whatever it's called in the Shadowlands we should be either able to fly or have massively increased movement speed. I died in Ardenweald and spawned on Tirna Scithe and had to travel several minutes to my corpse.

Another thing we really need is a hearthstone to our Covenant sanctum. It's beyond me why this isn't existing (same with the whistle). These things have just become mandatory without flying available at launch.

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Oh no, you have to walk to your corpse! Maybe use that time walking back to your dead body to figure out what you did wrong so that you won't die again.

What I did wrong? Sure, placing (solo!) world quests behind a zone of elite mobs is clearly a good idea, so you can either ride through them (and eventually die) or look for a group to clear the path to do a (solo!) world quest... yeah, sounds plausible.

Walking to your corpse is no issue if the graveyards are placed good and the terrain isn't so difficult to traverse.

[Depakote]

Yes, I think as ghosts or whatever it's called in the Shadowlands we should be either able to fly or have massively increased movement speed. I died in Ardenweald and spawned on Tirna Scithe and had to travel several minutes to my corpse.

Another thing we really need is a hearthstone to our Covenant sanctum. It's beyond me why this isn't existing (same with the whistle). These things have just become mandatory without flying available at launch.

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What I did wrong? Sure, placing (solo!) world quests behind a zone of elite mobs is clearly a good idea, so you can either ride through them (and eventually die) or look for a group to clear the path to do a (solo!) world quest... yeah, sounds plausible.

Walking to your corpse is no issue if the graveyards are placed good and the terrain isn't so difficult to traverse.

It's not a solo world quest if there's elite's protecting it, now is it?

[Wildpantz]

So far besides the Maw (disabling mounts is bullshit) the leveling is solid and decently paced.

As for when you hit level 60, Its a fucken chore. Tons of busy work and it honestly explains why the leveling is as fast as it is. So many different gated systems that have grinds to them.

Its like they took everything from Legion and BFA then added more to it. Ill give it a bit more since it just launched but Its already pushing me away from it.

Didn't vote since this question isn't really a yes or no yet since its so early.

This is a complete lie there is only torgahst and 1 weekly quest everything else is not needed at all

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Just because there is a weekly lockout doesn't mean it isn't a grind to do to get to that lockout.

Torgasht take 1 hour if that is a grind mmos arent for you

[StillMcfuu]

Cons
Flying through Oribos to fly between zones (seriously why make it take 30 more seconds every single time)

You know, I didn't mind this at first because it made sense in a supernatural, these realms aren't linked to each other in any way, they just happen to be linked to the main Hub of Oribos.
But then I remembered Maldraxxus flew straight over to Bastion, so the game isn't really following it's own rules.


My thoughts on SL:
It's been pretty good so far.
The notably great:
Ardenweald is my new absolute favorite WoW zone. It's absolutely beautiful to look at, fantastic music, probably the best zone story ever told in this game. Torghast is suitably challenging, and I love that it's essentially Slay the Spire in WoW. That will keep me playing for a long time (most likely). The Maw isn't as big a shit show I thought it would be. The new command table, covenant sanctums, upgrade system, all of this works well for me.

The notably not great:
Maldraxxus is fucking awful to look at it and be in, I thought there would be more diversity between the houses and their aesthetic, but that wasn't to be. The dungeons feel too short. And too many are this new wide open outdoor area choose your path type areas that I just don't like. I haven't done all the dungeons yet, but of the ones I have done, none of them excite me (really more of an effect of Mythic +, but it's really negatively impacting the game for "e-sports"). Ohh and some of the non-cinematic animation is absolute shit. I noticed it at first with the Nathanos death scene looked almost Wrath/Cata era in animation. And multiple times during the campaign when an ingame cinematic would run, the characters are starting to look awful and their animations really stand out as rushed and poor quality.

That's really the only things that stood out to me as particularly bad, or definitely going to annoy me (dungeons) as the expansion wears on.

[Ret4resto]

I think it's a strong expansion so far.

I've never been one to read quest text because I was so ready to level. This expansion I've been reading and I love the story of each of the zones, maldraxxus and ardenweald have a really strong story. Bastion is just ok, and revendreath I just started so I can't really speak on it yet.

So far what's doing it for me is
-pretty good story lines for each of the zones
-amazing design for the design, the art team really went off.
-pvp venders are back

[LordTakeo]

...most people enjoyed WoD's leveling experience, too. It's difficult to judge an expansion off of just the launch content.

I mean, to be fair. It's still good. WoD just lacked content past the starting experience, and had the Garrison conflict.
Personally, I like the expansion alot. I had so much stuff to do, even did PvP because it gave me an option to get a caster weapon and a trinket when M0's were for my enhancer.
Leveling a tank up now, and have to say, its relaxing not having to spamm things for loot or AP. I can enjoy thorgast for the 11th time, despite it giving no rewards.

People quitting just are frustrated they have to wait on launch week. Or just really don't like it for personal reasons? Alas, it's too early to say yet, but I think it will mostly be fine, once people realize how rare loot will be, and how much time they got to relax/level alts/enjoy all content this time around.

[Crispin]

So you play a mmorpg and don't care about the story... Maybe World of Warcraft isn't for you.

Being forced into a line of quests is far from a fundemental feature of mmo's.

Nor is interest in the storyline a requirement.

[Shadowferal]

WoD was crap. If you have to do a huge retcon to sell it then it becomes that from the beginning and moving onward is only a futile attempt at shining shit. It's only redeeming feature were some of the pretty zones.

[Nyel]

It's not a solo world quest if there's elite's protecting it, now is it?

The quest is in a region beyond the elite enemies, it's solo doable and not marked to require other players. So no, it is a solo quest that is just placed really badly (like a lot of things in Shadowlands, e.g. flight masters, graveyards).