Got KSM and enough bis gear from vault that I haven't set foot in a dungeon in over a month. The thought of doing m+ again is pure torture.
I hated BFA more than any other Xpac and i played the whole xpac still... I have already started not logging in this xpac. Seems kinda empty and void of reasons to log in.. the gear feels bad and the i levels are all messed up for the content.
Shadowlands is, as far as i'm concerned, a 2nd WoD. (disclaimer: i didn't hate WoD, but still thought it was lackluster)
An exceedingly popular launch that just didn't follow up.
The experience in the 1st month was great.
The leveling experience was good. (this time only the 1st time you do it)
Weekly tid-bits of story advancement were ok.
But once you are done with that it's just a matter of logging in for raids.
The one thing they managed is to pull out a shotgun and shoot themselves in the leg with is alts... not so much the max-level experience, but the leveling. I mean; i found myself leveling alts to 50 and then adandoning them cause leveling past that level is just a PITA. (i guess it's the mob scaling that goes out of hand at about level 54?)
This is the first expansion where I've completely dipped on the intro. The new lore just doesn't grab me; the covenant leaders are blocks of wood and their zones are visually monochrome. Part of what kept me playing the first patch of BFA was the promise of new allied races on the horizon, and the zones/lore were rich and diverse.
In Zandalar/KT I liked learning about the Loa, finally meeting Zul and Rastakhan, meeting Bwonsamdi, the Blood Troll campaign and Titan-made Old God experiment, the desert outcasts, the Waycrest storyline, Ashvane's betrayal, unearthing the Drust lore and the unsettling pig monsters, and getting a glimpse of N'zoth's Lovecraftian horrors and the connection to Azshara.
The SL zones and campaign are just so bland and repetitive in comparison.
BFA did WQ better. For secondary content, I'd rather do Warfront zone dailies than the Maw. I'd rather do Island Expeditions than Torghast.
I'm not saying BFA was a great expansion, but if we're comparing the first patch to first patch, I have it way ahead of SL.
Kupo.
Some of you whinging retail players are truly insufferable. THERE'S NO CONTENT OTHER THAN ALL THE THINGS YOU DO IN MMOS, WAAAAH. I feel bad for Blizz, how do you ever cater to such people? At least Classic TBC is coming for the people who actually appreciate real MMOs and don't need to be constantly fed gimmicks so they can feel like there is "content" to do.
As was pointed out to you, this is wrong. They were announcing quarterly active accounts back then, and they peaked in the Cata pre-release quarter (12.4M, if I recall correctly; at least it was 12-something M.)
Blizzard has made two main mistakes over the years with WoW. The first, shown best in Cataclysm, was the mistake of thinking they could make players hardcore. This doesn't ever work, and certainly didn't work then.
The second mistake was assuming they could successfully cater to both hardcore and more mediocre players in the same game. This doesn't work either, and I'll contend has been the source of the game's relentless downward drift since then. The game offers little to the mediocre players except constant reminder they are being grudgingly tolerated for their $$$, and that they better not enjoy themselves too much or the devs will remind them again they are not worthy of it.
Last edited by Osmeric; 2021-03-07 at 01:19 PM.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
Bingo. But it was to be expected, with a hardcore raider as game director. And it shows a lot, for example with these soon-to-be implemented "valor points". They are almost useless for your average Joe who runs low range M+ keys, and it disproportionately benefits those who can chain M15 all day long (aka hardcore players).
This thread aged like milk and so did Shadowlands' first impression.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
It wasn't for me. The problems with the expansion became glaringly obvious for me almost instantly, and my play sputtered to a halt on December 12. I've watched the game's accelerating and well-deserved collapse since then. This has been more enjoyable than anything in the expansion itself. Going forward, watching the devs add irrelevant fixes while continuing to not question their core design misconceptions promises to be very satisfying.
Last edited by Osmeric; 2021-03-07 at 02:00 PM.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"