Shadowlands: Rapidly Climbing the Ladder in Popularity

[Nyel]

An indicator for the recent state of retail WoW: the state of the MMOC General Discussions for WoW. This forum has never been as dead as it is right now (and it is like this for a few weeks already). Not even ongoing discussions about the future of Shadowlands anymore, forum participation just plummeted.

[Rusken]

Yes I am. Or do you have access to the hard drives to both my computers? No you do not. This year I have played five different MMOs. And, tired as I am to repeat myself, I do enjoy the conversations here for the most part. Or are you just upset this page isn't your personal echo chamber? Go, enjoy the spring weather, have some tea.

What I don't get is that you made your account here (supposedly) 5 years after you quit the game and have made 4 posts a day everyday since. You must REALLY enjoy the conversations here...

[Wangming]

What I don't get is that you made your account here (supposedly) 5 years after you quit the game and have made 4 posts a day everyday since. You must REALLY enjoy the conversations here...

I've had a different but I managed to lock myself out of it. I may be able to get it back, but it was easier to make a new one. No, I wasn't banned by the way.

[Cringefest]

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 expansions 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 expacs.

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.

I feel the same. There's something that catches my attention in this expansion. I see they're trying to do things differently and I appreciate that. I main a holy paladin and the playstyle is... Well... Different for sure but enjoyable. M+ are a blast. Always up and running.
The story is pretty grim without being extremely cheesy, which is good. The leveling experience was also pretty enjoyable. Ardenweald was intense. Of course, the overarching story of sylvanas and all that shit is abysmal. It really irks me I had to save Alliance leaders? Really?
I like how they're experimenting about things in general. If they could just fire all the writers they have and start writing a simple story instead of this embarrassing charade it'd be great.
Oh, also. Voice acting is brutal. Wtf happened there, they had somewhat good voice acting. Now it looks they're short of a male voice? Some bosses are clearly voiced by a female using like a deep, male-ish voice (second last boss in PoA i think) and it sounds absolutely ridiculous lol.

[ashblond]

An indicator for the recent state of retail WoW: the state of the MMOC General Discussions for WoW. This forum has never been as dead as it is right now (and it is like this for a few weeks already). Not even ongoing discussions about the future of Shadowlands anymore, forum participation just plummeted.

I mentioned this months ago. The game and forum have been dead since December.

But ofc, retards always say "People who enjoys SL is in the game, only whiners and haters are on the forum."

LOL

[Soon-TM]

I mentioned this months ago. The game and forum have been dead since December.

But ofc, retards always say "People who enjoys SL is in the game, only whiners and haters are on the forum."

LOL

As a rule of thumb, if someone resorts to the "silent majority" argument, you can easily spot who's talking out of his/her behind. Unless they can provide some hard evidence, of course.

[Berndorf]

Wow's last two expansions feel more and more as if an ai is making the major decisions which go into creating them. Like the ai was involved 25% in Legion, 50% in bfa and now 75% in SL. bfa I thought actually had great world building, as in maybe the best of any exp then we go to SL which is hands down the worst for me as someone who played every exp. It's just horrible. I hate all the zones and all the covenants(most of all the story). Before anyone says 'stop playing then', ya I stopped about a month or two ago and probably won't consider coming back until the next exp and even then I'm really hoping to have found a better game to play by then.

[Unholyground]

Looks like the hype is done now and people are starting to see how shallow the content is.

[ashblond]

As a rule of thumb, if someone resorts to the "silent majority" argument, you can easily spot who's talking out of his/her behind. Unless they can provide some hard evidence, of course.

Those guys are delusional and unrealistic.

[Echocho]

This thread aged like a bottle of fine milk

[prwraith]

I mean it's the expansion that finally drove me to say F this lol.

[Soon-TM]

I mean it's the expansion that finally drove me to say F this lol.

This. Blizzard may have SL more or less "fixed" by 9.3 (assuming that there will actually be 9.3, that is), but it will be too little, too late.

So I might return for 10.0, if they manage to come with something that isn't yet another version of borrowed power (inb4 tier sets rofl), and preferably with an at least mildly interesting story.

[Dracullus]

Looks like the hype is done now and people are starting to see how shallow the content is.

Another empty word.

What was 'depth' of Legion? Farming AP, praying for legos/titanforging?
What was 'depth' of MoP? Farming dailies, doing circles in shrines?
What was 'depth of Wrath? Farming easy dungeons, clearing 5 year old raid, doing circles in Dalaran?

[Unholyground]

Another empty word.

What was 'depth' of Legion? Farming AP, praying for legos/titanforging?
What was 'depth' of MoP? Farming dailies, doing circles in shrines?
What was 'depth of Wrath? Farming easy dungeons, clearing 5 year old raid, doing circles in Dalaran?

They could start by allowing us to do things beyond their set progression systems, let players progress the way they want, not with forced power progression, make the classes whole again out of the gate and stop repackaging our kits so we have to re-earn what we already had in the previous expansion it feels horrible and is a very poor way to design a progressive MMO. Power from gear or a set bonus is fine because it is a bonus to a full kit but your character power should not be locked behind slowly progressive systems and time walls because Blizzard needs to increase its monetary monthly intake.

[D3athsting]

I mean it's the expansion that finally drove me to say F this lol.

I'd say press F for Wow

Btw weapon tokens in raid are one of the most retarded decisions ever made imho, weapons drops have always been the one of greatest source of interestet in farming endgame content after clearing it, especially those weapons with particular procs or insane dmg, now you only get a TOKEN to buy a stat stick from a vendor, that's fu***ng lame! Yes legion had artifacts but at least farming to get good relics mitigated a lot the absence of weapon choice... I don't have any problems in saying one of my greatest moment of joy was getting perdition's blade and later fangs of the father on my rogue

[Dracullus]

They could start by allowing us to do things beyond their set progression systems, let players progress the way they want, not with forced power progression, make the classes whole again out of the gate and stop repackaging our kits so we have to re-earn what we already had in the previous expansion it feels horrible and is a very poor way to design a progressive MMO. Power from gear or a set bonus is fine because it is a bonus to a full kit but your character power should not be locked behind slowly progressive systems and time walls because Blizzard needs to increase its monetary monthly intake.

I honestly try to think what SL is doing diffrently than other expansions that make it lose it's 'depth'.

Before Legion raiding was only way to progress your character, there were also side game called PVP with different sets. After Legion you can progress to max available item level through raids, dungeons, PVP.

What even 'let players progress the way they want' means? If I want progress from fishing, I should get better items from fishing? What else than hardest PVE bosses or hardest PVP opponents should give me best gear? Or do you think doing easy and geting random item level boost was 'progression'?

What class kits you had re-earn? If anything we get few more spells in endgame.

'Make classes whole again' is another empty word, I suggest we won't go there.

SL is time-gated (Season 1 is not timegated in any way for like a month, I remind) as alternative to grinding from Legion/BfA. And it's just for few soulbinds and cosmetics, everything else were released last year already. Like it, don't like, I don't think grinding make any 'depth'.

[prwraith]

The real issue is, as wow goes on. it more and more feels like a job to maintain raiding ability at a mythic level. I put up with it for a few expansions in a row now, but finally SL was so bad I had to ask myself if I was really having fun anymore or just helping to keep the team going.

Feelsbad

[kodemonkee]

I mean it's the expansion that finally drove me to say F this lol.

For me it was BfA and when I saw the stuff for SL I thought it could save the franchise but it clearly did not, logged in maybe 2 times in 2 weeks and that's it. I uninstalled it and I think I am done. But nonetheless I will follow the next races for world first because it's fun but spending money for it? Nah. Now that you can't even buy a month game time but have to sub is a big NO for me. I know I can sub and cancel it but that is not the point. I won't sub for a month to bring them fake sub numbers.

[Dakara]

I mean it's the expansion that finally drove me to say F this lol.

Yep. Not far off myself... will see what 9.1 brings.

One thing that's particularly frustrating at the moment is Blizzards total lack of a Roadmap for the expansion systems, namely Lego's. Should I be farming Choreghast weekly for more Ash or will it be reset in 9.1? Will there be a V2.0 Soul Ash to upgrade them? Should I be crafting more in anticipation of equipping multiple Legos throughout the expansion?
Is Valor being reset for those of us who have nothing to upgrade this Tier? (probably).

Every expansion since Legion we've had to run on assumptions as to what's happening with various systems in the next season.... just lay out a bloody roadmap Blizzard so we have some idea.

Besides the above, (which kills alts for me), Covenants are a complete failure (for me). It's not even a Min/Max thing, it's a "Hey his Covenant fixes my class" issue or "This Covenant's ability is a dead button". The divide is so large the "meaningful choice" comes down to Aesthetics Vs Viability...

Then we have M+
I don't mind M+ with Guildies and Friends, but like always, it's a case of not enough Tanks. I support M+ as an inclusion of difficult 5 man content but at the same time it killed the queueable PvE Dungeon gameplay which I thoroughly enjoyed in days done by for my Alts.
How about Making Heroic somewhat relevant again, Make Mythic queueable and squish the Key levels down.
This way "premades" running Keys keep their loot and their prestige but those who enjoy matchmaking aren't stuck in Blues. Lets be honest, within a few weeks of a season most low keys are irrelevant as Raiders and Key pushers are very quickly doing +10's or higher. The more casual player base get ridiculously frustrated trying to join groups for Keys who check .IO for a +2 and it's killing the game for a large number of players... PvP has the same problem with no solo Queue for rated.

Anyway, if Heroic and Mythic were queueable and offered slightly better rewards (combined with Valor) the more casual players (or my Alts) can go back to enjoying the old Dungeon systems without spending an hour LFG as a non-meta spec. Meanwhile, Keys could be squished down a bit so that a +10 is more akin to a +15 and everyone happy.

From my perspective, WOW enjoyed immense popularity in the early days due to it's nostalgia from WC3 and (at the time) it was far more accessible than other MMO's but Blizzard have scaled back that accessibility with their focus on M+ (and Rated PvP) which is killing the game without matchmaking. Players don't want to spend an hour in Oribos LFG when they could instead play any other game and jump in immediately.

Guilds are great, but there's always those days/times where you log in at an odd time and can't get a guild group going... so you either log off or <shudders> pug. Guilds also suffer content fatigue around now as players take time off for the next season.

Anyway, this is turning into a Rant, but it's something I strongly believe Blizzard need to address moving forward.

[D3athsting]

The real issue is, as wow goes on. it more and more feels like a job to maintain raiding ability at a mythic level. I put up with it for a few expansions in a row now, but finally SL was so bad I had to ask myself if I was really having fun anymore or just helping to keep the team going.

Feelsbad

Some might call me crazy but mythic isn't fun, 40% of the time is spent listening rl explaining tacts and swearing after another wipe, 15% trying to kill the boss and the remaining 45% looking at your character licking the floor and hoping for a battle ress that will never happen if you're a dps unless the boss is <10%, it really feels like smashing your head against a wall and after 80/90 hits the wall will eventually break and you will get your well deserved 50 AP and 20 gold, this is what happens when you let hazzikostas tune raids for Limit and weakauras/Dbm/bigwigs