Shadowlands: Rapidly Climbing the Ladder in Popularity

[aceperson]

I thought Shadowlands was initially received very well and had a lot of praise? Why is everyone suddenly hating it like WoD?

keep in mind, wod was also received very well when it first came out. it took about a month for most of the issues to become apparent. the same thing is happening in this case. though there have been a few exceptions such as the covenant controversy. i fully expect another turn for the worse since blizz heard players wanted valor points but didn't use it for what they wanted. people wanted a method of bad luck protection and instead they are getting an upgrade system to make those lucky drops even luckier.

basically, blizz management isn't listening to players and this time there isn't a lot of the goodwill they had back in wod. blizz has had controversy after controversy and stupid decision after stupid decision. also, i don't know if you've really been following wow news that much but people haven't just started hating on systemlands. people have been getting madder and madder since the first week of raiding came out and blizz nerfed loot drops. yes, it was a bugfix to the intended amount from beta but it was still a stupid decision to go through with it.

[Rendark]

After hating what they did in legion and not playing bfa at all, i like shadowlands.

[EyelessCrow]

keep in mind, wod was also received very well when it first came out. it took about a month for most of the issues to become apparent. the same thing is happening in this case. though there have been a few exceptions such as the covenant controversy. i fully expect another turn for the worse since blizz heard players wanted valor points but didn't use it for what they wanted. people wanted a method of bad luck protection and instead they are getting an upgrade system to make those lucky drops even luckier.

basically, blizz management isn't listening to players and this time there isn't a lot of the goodwill they had back in wod. blizz has had controversy after controversy and stupid decision after stupid decision. also, i don't know if you've really been following wow news that much but people haven't just started hating on systemlands. people have been getting madder and madder since the first week of raiding came out and blizz nerfed loot drops. yes, it was a bugfix to the intended amount from beta but it was still a stupid decision to go through with it.

I keep trying to play, I hate the expansion, it's absolutely boring, it's not Warcraft to me. My addiction has kept me logging in to sit there, being completely uninterested in every class. The factions are not interesting and none of them make me care. The lore characters I was excited to see seem like they don't really even matter. So there goes even more of what little "Wacraft" Shadowlands had. Torghast is uninspired and at no point was it exciting to get stupid strong powers, it almost feels required to get them to proceed, so a fun experience turns into the opposite most of the time.

I couldn't care less about the lore. I'm sick of Sylvanas, I'm sick of Anduin. It's only going to get worse, they've jumped the shark with the WoW storyline. Total playtime this expansion at this time is probably a fraction of any other point in my history of playing WoW. I thought at first I was just getting too old and burnt out on WoW. Now I'm certain the game just sucks now. Also, hearing Pelagos talk creeps me the hell out. That's not a reason why I think WoW sucks now. I'm just stating whenever that character talks like they are trying to be a human being but is actually a robot...that kills small animals in their spare time.

[Mojo03]

I thought Shadowlands was initially received very well and had a lot of praise? Why is everyone suddenly hating it like WoD?

It's not that bad, but people I think have accomplished most of what they wanted already and the next patch isn't even in sight still... 4 months after launch... Nor that compelling.

[OMGTwitchTV]

Not foolish at all, I've watched the slow but sure mass exodus of players and heard their reasons as to why. WoW isn't WoW anymore. It's simple, not complicated with a plethora of excuses as to why, that some people like to perpetuate (burnt out, real life etc). With the corresponding depletion of subscriptions to back up the data. You're completely wrong, it's not even remotely only a tiny sample size. If you enjoy the game, great. However, the fact remains the game has taken a major swan dive in popularity for a specific reason.

I was unaware you worked for Blizz in their cancellation department. /s

As for "mass exodus", it may be true on smaller realms, but on Proudmoore, we are still wall to wall players in every major city after 2pm everyday, all the way up through 2am. If we are both going by "what we see", then I can assure you we are seeing two different things since I am not on a dead realm.

[TheFirstOnes]

This shit aged poorly.

[dewd]

the good sales numbers on shadowlands were a sign that they really trusted blizzard to not make the same mistake as bfa again. ion did so much damage control and apologized during whole of bfa and assured us they learned from bfa.

people realized days or maybe a week into shadowlands that we got another bfa on our hands and unsubbed faster than ever. these 6 months sub mount combos are always a sign of desperation on blizzards side and we already had 2 of those within 3 months of a new expansion with the transmog set and the recent ox mount

[Lightforged]

The expansion is absolutely fine. The only real issue with Shadowlands is that 9.1 is not releasing soon. If Blizzard had kept to the 77 day release schedule from Legion, then I doubt anyone would be complaining that much. Blizzard was clearly behind while BFA was still out, the pandemic only exacerbated the issue. I would not be surprised if they cut Shadowlands short, like they did with WoD, and focus on the next expansion.

[Tyrannica]

@Tyrannica you must be a brave soul to go solo with WM on as a warlock. Any decently geared rogue can kill you in a stunlock, or a ret during Blinding Light, or mages/boomkins if you are caught without felhunter out... And the list goes on.

Yeah, i mean i had some expierence, dwelling on pvp severs and warmode for ages and i had a shadowpriest leveld first to 60 and wanted to have a nice comparission how they fare solo and the action directly into the face. If only my pet could tank Players like mops, you know its so smooth with the shadowpriest to do some pvp on your own(bit slow tho) and warlock is so smooth pve wise doing quests even elites. Remember TBC when SL/SL Lock was the tank in pvp and not spriest, such a difference now.

I placed my portal up at hills and teleport cicle, faced those rogues, rets, ferals and fire mages with no gear while they pretty much maxed it. Sometimes i could troll one with curse of exhaution and teleports, problem is they also come in pairs and geared to kill a squishy undergeared class, maybe to collect honor for some acm because wm is a wasteland player wise.

But, warlock is probably the weakest spec in solo warmode, well until you use pillars of the dark portal leg, this one is quite insane for warmode and has huge outplay potential.

Miss the passive tankiness of warlocks, this one got completely removed. Aff/Destro have no Soullink, Demo has no demon armor(quite ironic...lol) i think aff/destro could have fel armor and demology, demon armor.

I bet 2 cents, no class dev ever turned warmode on with a warlock, ofc i quickly turned it off after i got my taste of it as an underwhelming class for that part of the game.There is no point to do that as lock, and i am not sure, if it even would make sense to do it with a leather class, because there is simply no incentive anymore.

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The expansion is absolutely fine. The only real issue with Shadowlands is that 9.1 is not releasing soon. If Blizzard had kept to the 77 day release schedule from Legion, then I doubt anyone would be complaining that much. Blizzard was clearly behind while BFA was still out, the pandemic only exacerbated the issue. I would not be surprised if they cut Shadowlands short, like they did with WoD, and focus on the next expansion.

That would probably be a good idea, shadowlands somehow seems very small even compared to BfA. At least BfA was more connected to Azeroth.(as seen in patch 8.3.) and most importantly(for me, tho) both factions got big city hubs. Oribos is small and should entertain 2 factions......a bit underwhelming like in BfA when i found out the faction boats are very small and uninteresting and can't replace class order halls in any way now blizz even deleted rich city hubs.

For a big company they only do very little content. I think its very important to have a big world. Think MMORPGs are living on immersion not just instances alone.

Its easily noticeable if you just level an alt in a place like Kalimdor, how big the world should be.

[Gref]

So you're doing M+15 and raiding and somehow 1000 Anima is pain the ass? Not to mention that you can just skip it and get extra renown from world boss, I assume you're not min-maxer since you didn't touched Maw, so being 1 renown behind shouldn't be a problem.

10/10aotc 2 myhtic down. I do not give a single shit about min max as who would in their right mind farm 23423904832 stygia for a fucking 16 crit rate gem slot. wtf.
Thank the fuck they increased anima drops from the raid. I no longer have to deal with farming 1000. It was a pain in the ass. no flying, and anima quests are totally in different zones. They fixed it but I should not have needed to wait for 4 months for a fix. whole hc raid you get 350 anima wtf and 0 items for 3 weeks straight wtf.

[msdos]

I love how the last 2 expansions have been extended beta tests where all of the quality of life, fun and stuff that makes sense isn't added in until the end of the expansion and every new expansion you feel terrible and you're also jebaited because they wait too long to make changes, everything you had was borrowed.

So the moment you finally feel good, the expansion is over and it's time to have it all removed. I mean it just keeps happening. They basically do nothing the first 2/3 of an expansion and then add in mongo crazy stuff at the end to keep people playing. It's dumb and people aren't falling for it anymore.

[Othraerir]

BFA > SL

/facts

[threads]

This shit aged poorly.

lol right? everyone i knew was playing it then after the holidays nobody is.

[craigw]

i have a penis. hear me roar.

[Niwes]

I can only speak for myself, but so far, this expansion is on par to be my new favorite. It has already knocked TBC out of 2nd place and is heavily breathing down the neck of WotLK for first. I came into this game Jan 19, 2006, and after Cataclysm, have just not been impressed with the DLCs that followed. Granted, that is just my personal, subjective opinion. I am speaking for no one but myself, nor am I claiming my opinion to be imperical data on the state of the other DLCs.

Is anyone else either seeing Shadowlands move into their number one spot, or at least rapidly climbing the ranks? I know we still have a ways to go in this expac, but if 9.1 and 9.2 are anything like the launch, I have no doubt this expac will apologize for the last 4 in my book and become the new number one on my list.

have to add:

-5 points, because of halfassed clickbait title, makin it look like the statement is from some game magazines, or statistics or whatever, while you start with „i can only speak for myself“. the -5 points is for abscence of creativity or at least some more sneaky way to do this. very lame.

i say this, because i clicked the 3rd time onto this fucked up thread. that title is such lame, it works like a charm. do not let me look like the smartest guy on earth, but... fuck your clickbait title. sorry, had to say this.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

Aged like milk

[Niwes]

BFA > SL

/facts

as sad as this sounds and as ashamed i am to write this, but: 100% agree.

i way less hated azerite and essences, than i hate all that anima, covenant, conduit, thorgast, ashes, renown, freaky fucky poopoo shit. besides that i could puke from every zone in this new „world“, if you wanna call that cheap shit islands bound together by a flight, a world. BfA in that regard topped SL for me by around 10.000 yards. but thats just me.

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I love how the last 2 expansions have been extended beta tests where all of the quality of life, fun and stuff that makes sense isn't added in until the end of the expansion and every new expansion you feel terrible and you're also jebaited because they wait too long to make changes, everything you had was borrowed.

So the moment you finally feel good, the expansion is over and it's time to have it all removed. I mean it just keeps happening. They basically do nothing the first 2/3 of an expansion and then add in mongo crazy stuff at the end to keep people playing. It's dumb and people aren't falling for it anymore.

because it is TOTALLY important to reinvent the complete wheel every xpac. because if you do not, you can not write 20 cheap shit clickbait features on the xpacs feature list and Bobby Kottick is asking why you have nothing „new“ (lol new). so basically Ions job is it, to reinvent all that shit by least possible costs, pack it into a new costume and call it a „totally new design philosophy“ with „awesome features“, while marketing is makin the rest. oops, yes, i really said it.

[tyranade]

A bit hyperbolic but I tend to agree. Legion was a pretty good expansion in terms of content with some very fresh ideas but I basically enjoyed none of it because their class revamps ruined the specs I previously liked to play.

I agree to this. Only a revert to before Legion of class design would make me consider returning. Plus I want content for casual play, world content in a world that doesn’t have the size of a pinhead. New ideas, fun things to do. I don’t care about high level gear, average is OK. I liked when the last raiding tier became available when the new patch hit.

[TheFirstOnes]

lol right? everyone i knew was playing it then after the holidays nobody is.

Don't get me wrong, I like SL...

But there's nothing to do rn. And PVE gearing sucks dick.

[lolmmofuture]

lol and the cycle repeats

u guys that come back and try shit. U DONT REALIZE WHY U LEAVE. the fking probleems are in the core of the game guys.... its not about shadowlands features, tho it helps, but the fking core of the game is fked. LFR, catchup, patch resets. etc.. nothing matters