"Why didn't he talk about X?" That's really is a good question, especially after listening to my own recording. What happened to pulling the ripcord or really tearing into conduits or literally everything Shadowlands? There's a lot to be said about those of us who've stuck it out for the entire expansion and experienced the incremental changes. Fact of the matter is that while we might be able to recall everything, I think in general I tend to recall the final patch of an expansion most, followed by more personal memories related to my guild, and then I'd totally lose you. We've all got our story. I invite you to share yours.
My biggest problem with shadowlands is covenants still I hate the fact that my blood dk is night fae but I wouldn't have hated the grind in shadowlands if they made the content fun, I've been extremely bored of the world quests in Zereth Mortis daily's are pointless as well which is a huge issue. The maw was fine if you could mount, I didn't mind the maw on my druid (an alt) but couldn't fucking stand it on my dk (my main). Korthia just had the most fucking boring story and I hated just constantly running circles killing rares it wasn't fun. I loved the lego system and Torghast was fun if you had the right class and spec which was a huge issue the fact that some classes and specs had a fucking cake walk and others struggled just because of how unbalanced anima powers where.
I will personally remember Shadowlands as the expansion where there were so many systems that I quit the game one month after launch because I got overwhelmed.
I'm ASD - and I genuinely got so frustrated and overwhelmed trying to figure out how to make my first legendary without screwing up somehow - it drove me to tears and I didn't play for a Month after that meltdown lol..
Shadowlands is the second expac that made me leave Wow. The first was Warlords. I left during Warlords because my build died on the last patch and I didn't feel like find another. I remember WoD a lot more fondly than SL right now. WoD didn't have enough to do outside raids, SL certainly had more to do, but a lot of it weren't things I wanted to do. The Maw sucked. It was not fun and we had to do it weekly to stay up to date on Covenant progress. Torghast was a chore after the first few weeks. Ultimately what's worse, leaving because you didn't have enough to do or leaving because you didn't want to do the things.
What content wod had was really good they just cut and ran. What content shadowlands has is pretty low quality and/or annoying. The maw is the only exception. It is just like real hell a place you dont want to go to lol.
What I will remember from Shadowlands.: Alt unfriendly, Horrible Bloated Systems, Lawsuit Controversy, Blizzard ignoring Feedback again, and the worst I have seen the Wow Community ever. I hope to remember it as the turning point of Wow getting back to being good.
They've been doing a LOT to improve things. They *just* added deterministic sockets from your GV without the rep grind. They added Valor as a means to upgrade dungeon drops so you can simply farm for your best items without having to pray to the weekly cache. Aside from the campaign for Unity and the memory, ZM is 100% optional with regards to player power. Shadowlands (as of 9.1.5) is way more alt-friendly than pre-7.3.5 Legion (needing to just pray for that one specific lego to drop, having to grind out AP) or BFA before they added the vendor for essences (because some of those rank 3 grinds were absolutely painful to do once, never mind 3 or 4 times...oh yeah, and mindlessly grinding Islands to hit level 75 on your Heart of Azeroth). Run a dungeon once and you get your lego memory, conduits got really nice catchup mechanics in the past few weeks, and getting to 80 renown on an alt happens while you level (my warrior hit renown 77 from just doing the bonus objectives in Threads and running a couple of dungeons). So, they're actually taking player feedback into account a lot more than they have in the past (the Legion Lego and BfA Essence and Corruption vendors didn't come out until garbage time for the expansion). There's already a system in place to catch up on tier sets that's going live in a few weeks, so you'll be able to take a fresh alt and get them their 4 piece set bonus, their BiS legos, 80 renown, and all ilvl226 conduits within a day of hitting 60, ready to get into any form of content to want to use them in. Is it perfect? Of course not (I want to see a vendor for dungeon loot the way we had the Azerite Armor vendor all of BfA, and have dungeon gear get a buff in dungeons the way PvP gear gets a buff in PvP content). But the actual dungeon and raid content is still top-tier even if the story has been crap (granted, I always thought WoW's story was weak considering how amazing the actual worldbuilding is). If 10.0 improves on 9.2, I'll definitely be happy. 5.3 was my favorite time in this game, and I wouldn't mind seeing the game return to a more stripped-down gear-oriented progression than getting rewarded with little scraps of power like we got in Legion or BfA. Covenants without the power behind them are seriously friggin' cool, and anima being an expansion-long targeted cosmetic farm has been a lot of fun for me.
Well said with that last sentence. I'm really hoping this expansion is the 'turning point' expansion, or the expansion where things were so low that blizzard can only go up from here.
The positive things I will remember from Shadowlands: - some dope transmogs! - I found Torghast fun, but I know not everyone does. - Sire Denathrius was a badass! - EVIL. GHOST. BLANCHIE. MOUNT.
Torghast as a challenge mode at its hardest and catchup currency farm at lower difficulties is how it always should have been. It's super fun when you don't *have* to run it every week on ALL your characters.
Torghast was fun until you were forced to run it weekly for limited amounts of Soul Ash, once the restraints were removed, it got infinitely better, now all my alts level from 50 to 55 in Torghast.
@@UltimateGamerCC Definitely. Needing to do exactly 2 layer 8s absolutely sucked. Strolling in to run a couple of 9s in 9.1 to get a lego was actually fun because I didn't need to set aside an entire day to do chores. I actually love SL right now since I only feel the need to do the campaign enough to unlock stuff, then I can just do dungeons or farm anima for mogs and stuff. Alt hit 60? Buy the conduit catchup item and gtg. SL in 9.2 is in a WAY better place than Legion or BfA were in the first bit of their X.3 patches. Like, even if I don't get my 4-piece set (mythic raider) by the time the Creation Catalyst opens, I have the gear to use the system and get my set bonuses. Whereas it took me until midway through Tomb of Sargeras farm to get my Anger of the Half-Giants (Havoc DH's best lego) and my DPS suffering because our resource generation was balanced around that.
When you talk about people wanting harder outdoor content I feel like those people asking for that are midcore Heroic/Mythic raiders that want ALL content to be tailored to themselves and never think of anyone else
I loved Shadowlands in 9.0 and after 9.1.5, the in-between felt really slow, specifically because they said they weren't doing any more character customizations, which was a box feature (which they fixed) and then the whole scandal issues just really deflated my ability to enjoy the game. 9.1.5 was the first patch of the new team, who actually want to make the game players enjoy, and i started to love the game again. Now it's a blast. I'm interested to see how 9.2.5 ends up finishing off the expansion, but i think there is still a LOT of good content here.
For my own perspective, while there is a fair amount of transmog, mounts and such to collect (and I still try to collect it all because collections), the vast majority of it is things I know that I will never use, because it looks so specifically Shadowlands and non-Azeroth, and in canon I feel that my characters haven't visited the afterlife, tamed some afterlife-cat, and then brought those back to Azeroth as a living creature etc. As you touched on in the video, being able to just Mage portal to the afterlife and chat with anyone who has died just has too massive narrative implications that a large part of me is going to pretend it never happened, and as such the roleplayer in me can't have my characters wearing that stuff...
agreed, there was a lot if transmog. transmog i didnt want.... nothing really stood out to me. the death wasnt death enough. im worried that since the s death part of shadowlands wasnt on display, that when we get to the holy, light, life, order, arcane parts that nothing will be different
Here's a thought for account wide, on reset day you choose your main every week, so you're not stuck in 1 toon. Then for that week only that toon can gain rep and some currencies and what not. But it's account wide, so there's no toon jumping and farm exalted in week 1
For the record I liked the Eye of the Jailer mechanic. It's just too bad I couldn't play do to blood plague. Most people ended up losing their job, I lost my shift, got another shift, and more work to boot.
Knowing now how the story of the Jailer ends, I'm glad that Blizzard wrapped it up in three parts. Dragging the story over four parts only to end up in the same place would have made the ending even more disappointing.
3:50 imagine if, instead of the lack of imagination Devs currently display, they went with something really after-life-ish. For instance, all lvl 50+ characters die and end up in the SLs, leaving their bodies behind on Azeroth for NPCs and lower level toons to see. Imagine if, for the duration of SL, we could only return to Azeroth as incorporeal beings (for the first couple of patches or so) until we devised a way to come back from death, thus really earning the title of Maw-walkers. Personally, once again I can't but praise the work of artists in WoW: they have carried the rest of the caravan entirely on their shoulders. Them, and encounter-designers, I suppose.
yeah, i was just thinking about this too. i feel blizz failed for shadowlands. there werent new continents or planets. this was the fucking death realm. and there was not enough story or character development to be here.
Thrall: "Now remember. When anyone asks what happened in the giant sky portal over Icecrown we say..." Chorus: "Never mind all that." Thrall: "Good. Good. Why does it feel like we forgot something?" Azeroth, with the giant sword still sticking in her: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" Thrall: "Eh, probably not important."
The Maw was one of the worst things about Shadowlands. It's one thing to have difficult content/world areas but another to have a zone designed to limit your access and punish you for playing it (no mounts, eye of the jailer, etc.) I hated setting foot in the Maw and was only there for the minimal amount of time required. I think it's why 9.1 was so terrible also - those Maw Assaults were just shit...at least after the first couple times. All in all the thing that hurt shadowlands the most would have to be the insane content drought periods. It just felt stale after a short amount of time. Having such a small pool of dungeons for that long a period of time gets old quicker than it should have.
I think there's two key factors: 1) I think Shadowlands was doomed to be compared to WoD as soon as they cut content; the fact the game is widely seen as worse for it gives it a nice kinship with WoD that makes it feel to many like "WoD, again." That actually works in the game's favor in the near term, because we can't help but see the next expac as a potential Legion. Sure, we were already fooled once with the whole TIck Tock expac cadence finally being broken, but I think just about everyone would love to see 10.0 be like Legion 2.0: a new renaissance for the game. If the team can deliver an expac that is broadly liked (if not loved) like Legion was, we'll likely see folks look a lot more kindly on Shadowlands, and solidly place it above WoD on overall rankings. Shadowlands may be "objectively' better than WoD in the estimation of many (Azmon made this point recently), but there is definitely a kinship between Shadowlands and WoD that can't be denied. 2) There've been several expacs in a row now where Blizz has rolled out their big System for the expac, the community demonstrates it's broken and ill-considered in less time than it takes to watch The Batman, and Blizz just carries on full-steam ahead bold as brass. The practical reality is you can't change tentpole systems like this quickly, but when the result is your pitch fails before the game even launches and you push the boat out anyway, you'll spend the entire xpack backfooted with angry players. This isn't about reacting to community feedback after the fact, this is all on Blizzard: 10.0's inevitable System needs to be EXCELLENT. It needs to hold up to the intense screening it will immediately receive, so it can be authenticated as Certified Excellent. Team 2 needs to show the players they know what they're doing. TLDR: if 10.0 is a banger, all is forgiven, Shadowlands goes down as definitively better than WoD and even BFA, since it'll retroactively get credit for laying the foundation for 10.0
I have liked every Xpac, each have had their Up's and Down's but overall I have enjoyed all of them. I don't over analyze and do not blindly follow the social media crowd that shits on everything these days.
I’ve played wow since classic. I am a believer that tbc, wotlk, and cata were the best wow has ever been. In shadowlands i felt like the game isnt wow anymore. All the hand holding quests that are required to build your character is not the wow that i remember. Im on my third month in shadowlands. The constant upgrading and questing pulls me away from what i find fun and thats pvp. But then again the pvp in shadowlands isnt all that good also so there isnt much left.
in other words, did you know Pepe is in Zereth ? coordinates - 63:3 at the very top of the map. Pepe is having a romantic dinner by himself! .... could this mean hes a first one, too? ..hmm..
I think they are really good at making the expansions good at the end, they need to make they better from the start, its really just all the chores I don't like, everything else is fine for me, mostly
Hard disagree about SL being good for solo players because of the cosmetics. Solo players were intentionally denied gear progression through Torghast or other means, and even tier set bonuses in 9.2. (Cosmetic rewards are for everyone.)
Honestly if they hadnt made covenants such a pita to switch people might have given them a break on the expansion. But first impressions are a big deal and covenants were a big negative blocking people from 75% of the story endgame.
The problem with Shadowlands is that it only technically gave us things. Sure, we got tons of transmog and all but the activity to get it is the exact same tasks. Collecting foozles from a unique mob to get a thing is good. Simplified example of the problem: collecting foozles from that unique mob for a dozen things isn't. As for mob difficulty, the real issue with game play is that most abilities are unnecessary for running around in the open world. Blizzard has hypertuned the game for one style of play and it just isn't as fun in other contexts.
You know why some of the older expansions that we sh*t on when they were out we look back on and say oh maybe they weren't that bad is because the expansions that we're getting now are getting worse and worse so yeah in retrospect those expansions aren't so bad compared to this s*** we're getting now so you can say whatever you want but it's not like we're looking back with rose-tinted glasses we're looking back and comparing what we thought was s*** to the s*** we got now
Barely played any of shadowlands, altho some stuff seemed fun , i feel like blizzard's receipe is to always make the first year very average so the ending of the expansion can shine a little bit compared to its start
The long content droughts combined with the massive Blizzard lawsuit tainted the experience for sure. I didn't hate Shadowlands though, in fact in the beginning I thought it was great.
agreed, what has sucked more than anything is the long lapses in content, in fact there was so little content they timegated it to make it look like more than it really was. still it's miles above BFA, that expansion to me was the worst expansion of all time.
Never heard of anyone wanting harder outdoor zones, that was something that turned me off took so long to travel to do callings.... I have heard maybe some more challenging solo player content like the mage tower....
Why is solo content always thought of as pets, transmog, pets, etc.? I'm happy that people can get it but why can't we get solo action content that provides some progression too. Not to M+ or heroic raid level, but so something other than dailies would be nice.q
tell the diehards, they believe if you want anything of real worth, you must proceed through the big 3, and Blizzard obviously agrees with this, for Tier Sets require group content, the highest Conduit lvls require group content and finally Sockets for this season are locked behind group content.
Shadowlands improved with each patch. It isn't the worst xpac - that was Cataclysm and WoD was also worse. SL had a lot of WoD flavor that didn't work for WoD, and didn't work much better in SL. Nothing with the Sylvanus story worked in any way. The cinimatics were bad - some of them were poorly animated. But most of the raiding was entertaining (Except, again, for Sylvanus which was perhaps the worst design for a boss fight in the history of WOW). It's the Covid expac so there are things that will always have been impacted by it. I like Zerith Mortis a fair amount.
I happen to enjoy a lot of things about SL, but realistically I don't think SL will be remembered fondly. Disregard the drama with Blizzard and the real world issues going on at the time and you still have a pretty mediocre expansion that suffers the same way other mediocre expansions suffer. Maybe this is a bit simplistic, but I feel like players need something to carry over from one expansion to another. Maybe this isn't 100% accurate, but successful expansions introduce something for players which helps them personalize their experience, things that have lasting value, and they usually aren't transmogs, or mounts or pets or achievements. The things that have lasting value are an evolution to our classes, or an introduction of new classes. At the end of the day we aren't Mr. Breezy of 123 fake street, we're Sir Paladin Breezy of the Horde, because that's who we want to be when we play WoW, we want that level of immersion. So, Green Fire for Warlocks, Special mounts for all classes in Legion, these sorts of things have value... Unfortunately, Blizzard doesn't do a lot of this stuff, instead they opt in for temporary powers and systems, parasitic systems which are much easier to corral when needed. If you read this far, thank you, if not here's the TLDR - Blizzard needs to step away from parasitic borrowed powers, and needs to invest in class fantasy and give the players things that have lasting value. If they do this then an expansion will be good, if not, then you have another SL, another WoD, another 10.0 11.0 12.0
Well I will remember Shadowlands fondly because I started playing wow during Shadowlands. I thought it was an interesting tale and having played through a lot of the old expansions I think it might be easier to think of these expansions as more self contained stories on the same world rather than hoping for them to all hang together. That being said I am hopeful that Shadowlands will set up for a nice fresh story. And yes I’m very satisfied with the gearing and cosmetic opportunities for more solo players like myself! I even liked Torghast cause it was nice having a personal dungeon I could do with any size group and fun buffs! So there =p
I only hated certain expansions I was one of the few that liked both wod and bfa while it was current. Ironically I didn't like legion as much as most people.
Was shadowlands good for casuals? I hear people say there is so much cosmetics and such for solo players but I hear that the lack of content for casuals is whats killing the game
there is lack of content for everyone to be bluntly honest, 10 Dungeons with 8 being available as of 9.0, 3 Raids total being 1 per patch, 7 Questing Zones total, barely anything new for PVP and timegating that was so bad you got maybe 30 minutes to an hour of content per week.
Bringing back the pvp Stat for pvp gear instead of changing I level would have been better. This Expansion was kinda fun but I also was not happy with it. Wow really needs yo fuxking knock it out of the park next Expansion or I'm afraid I'm just not gonna be playing it anymore. And that makes me sad, because I love wow.
As a solo tranmog player, no. This expansion sucked. Grinding anima to fill out a shopping list with little or no engaging story is not fun. As a solo player the biggest gripe I have is not being able to do endgame content. Thats not because it takes longer to get those transmog, its because we want to see and experience the story without a bunch of idiots. I want to chill and take pictures in the raid instead of being shuffled to the next objective. I like to enjoy everything the art team has to offer at my pace. However having that pace be regulated sucks as much as being rushed through a dungeon. Maybe if the content was good I would feel better playing alts to get other transmogs. With this exspansion though, fuck that. Playing the game is no longer worth collecting the rewards.
I think a good way to judge shadowlands is to play through it once everything is out. Like WOD, it's not great in the moment but good when you have it all without the wait.
there was not enough of a death theme in shadowlands for me. zereth mortis seems like a holy, order, life thing going on. only maldraxxus seemed sort of dead. yeah bastion was elysian fields and i realize they didnt want all of it too seem too much of the same. hopefully the realm of death will be revisited in 5 years i guess. needed more death knight content perhaps. felt lacking on many fronts. disappointing.
I think I will remember shadowlands fondly. The content drought is easy to forget. I enjoyed dranor personally. We got some really cool zones, transmogs, mounts, and soul shapes. This expansion has been fun, and for the first part of it at least I got to raid and do m+ with some cool peeps.
In order of worst, BFA, SL, a distant third WOD. BFA started the terrible A story of Sylvanas- and gave us the terrible, under-baked patches of Ashara and N'zoth. Bonus, at least those stories were completed. Terdrassil burning forever will stain this one. Shadowlands continuation of the terrible Mary Sue Sylvanas story the fell apart for logical inconsistency. The Jailer barely a character. Like WOD, the story was cut, but this one comes of way more disjointed and ends on another cliff hanger. As a sole player, no, I do not like this expansion because of the 4 covenant BS. If the stories were open to play all on one main- then yes. WOD, I do remember fondly. I never like the premise of alternate Draenor, but they made the story fun. Plot points, even cut short, payed off. I knew it was missing the middle, but the quality and game play did not suffer for it. It felt like they cut the B plots and tied up the A plots best they could. Yeah, Grom and Yearl at the end felt weird- but the goal of taking down Gul'dan and the Iron Horde was completed.
Personally I’ve enjoyed it. The story could be better absolutely, but I’d put SL above BFA, and WoD in terms of an overall expansion maybe above Cata too cause I didn’t like it after the first patch. My favorite expansions are still Wrath, MoP, and Legion though.
Before wod, cata was criticized and afted wod bfa and systemlands took the crown. Because they were really awfully planned but legion was not this criticized so I wonder why it happened? Would it be cuz the last two expansions did suck that much more than wod? 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
Shadowlands will be remembered as the death throes of the "Era of Systems". End-stage systemization. Stage 4 Systemitis. I have my doubts, but I hope Ion and the gang finally realize what players have been screaming since 2016: end-game progression systems make the game worse. Full stop. Or at the very least, I hope Ion is demoted. If he can't learn and react to feedback, then he doesn't deserve his position. He's quite bad at it. It'll also (not) be remembered as one of the messiest, most forgettable expansions to date. An incomprehensible pile of retcons, plot threads that go nowhere, and horrible character assassinations that will mean nothing a year after SL.
9.0 was so good, I think if the time between patches wasn't so long then I think it would have been better. 9.1 with domination shards and long korthia grinds was the low point other than the wait.
Every expansion to me has "had its bad parts", but I've enjoyed all of them throughout the course of time. Nothing has been so terrible that it's made me look poorly back upon a previous expansion or even hate the whatever the current one is at the time. Everyone hated Azerite gear, Essences, Visions, etc, and I liked most of those systems even at the time. I loved covenant permenance of Shadowlands, preferred it even, I was a minority apparently, but I went into this expansion expecting to pick one and never change, and I was OKAY with that. The raids are great, the story has been "fine." Some people don't get it, but a lot of this stuff, even the "retcons" is no different than the Chronicles books. It's just MORE information on top of information we already had, it doesn't CHANGE those actions/events one bit.
Nah the grind was fine, the content was shit, 2 torghsts a week on every alt :) + anima at start + PvP + Conduits just so I can play more than 1 class or switch a class, also renown
nothing about this expansion respects your time and efforts. just when i thought i was excited to get flying in ZM. i learned that being in the air in ZM gets your more aggro than on the ground. but not only that, most of the shitty mobs in ZM have a specific cast to dismount you. no other mobs from any other expansions does this. why are mobs from the realm of creation do that? theres no logic, reason, or rhyme to it. even the roaming mobs on argus or the horrific vision invasion crap wasnt even this bad. shit, i even prefer to deal with those big ass nzoth worms that debuff u than be absolutely dismounted. Literally, being dismounted feels like molestation from some greasy dev thats trolling their players. mega toxic
Shadowlands worse than WoD, worst 2 xpacs, then vanilla which isn't an xpac but those are the 3 worst. Low key BFA pretty good, azerite gear sucked but was resolved. But ya Shadowlands is really bad. Little raids in terms of how much we got, little(volume) dungeons, and dungeons just aren't that good. Mists is number 1. Then put others where ever you want. BFA has best dungeons of any xpac tho.
For me Legion was worst expansion to this date.. Think World Quest were best part, but each other system had such a fatal flaws people don't remember and don't talk about..
![ปฏิเสธไม่ไหว (Crush on you) - LIPTA feat. No One Else [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NBw1jF342vw/mqdefault.jpg)
"Why didn't he talk about X?"
That's really is a good question, especially after listening to my own recording. What happened to pulling the ripcord or really tearing into conduits or literally everything Shadowlands? There's a lot to be said about those of us who've stuck it out for the entire expansion and experienced the incremental changes. Fact of the matter is that while we might be able to recall everything, I think in general I tend to recall the final patch of an expansion most, followed by more personal memories related to my guild, and then I'd totally lose you.
We've all got our story. I invite you to share yours.
Ill remember the Shadowlands as the expansion that i quit.
My biggest problem with shadowlands is covenants still I hate the fact that my blood dk is night fae but I wouldn't have hated the grind in shadowlands if they made the content fun, I've been extremely bored of the world quests in Zereth Mortis daily's are pointless as well which is a huge issue. The maw was fine if you could mount, I didn't mind the maw on my druid (an alt) but couldn't fucking stand it on my dk (my main). Korthia just had the most fucking boring story and I hated just constantly running circles killing rares it wasn't fun. I loved the lego system and Torghast was fun if you had the right class and spec which was a huge issue the fact that some classes and specs had a fucking cake walk and others struggled just because of how unbalanced anima powers where.
I will personally remember Shadowlands as the expansion where there were so many systems that I quit the game one month after launch because I got overwhelmed.
I'm ASD - and I genuinely got so frustrated and overwhelmed trying to figure out how to make my first legendary without screwing up somehow - it drove me to tears and I didn't play for a Month after that meltdown lol..
ZM is turning out better for me than I previously thought, and is more to my liking than the rest of SL, so there is that.
"its your home, the knowledge yet to discover"
Shadowlands is the second expac that made me leave Wow. The first was Warlords. I left during Warlords because my build died on the last patch and I didn't feel like find another. I remember WoD a lot more fondly than SL right now. WoD didn't have enough to do outside raids, SL certainly had more to do, but a lot of it weren't things I wanted to do. The Maw sucked. It was not fun and we had to do it weekly to stay up to date on Covenant progress. Torghast was a chore after the first few weeks. Ultimately what's worse, leaving because you didn't have enough to do or leaving because you didn't want to do the things.
What content wod had was really good they just cut and ran. What content shadowlands has is pretty low quality and/or annoying. The maw is the only exception. It is just like real hell a place you dont want to go to lol.
What I will remember from Shadowlands.: Alt unfriendly, Horrible Bloated Systems, Lawsuit Controversy, Blizzard ignoring Feedback again, and the worst I have seen the Wow Community ever. I hope to remember it as the turning point of Wow getting back to being good.
They've been doing a LOT to improve things. They *just* added deterministic sockets from your GV without the rep grind. They added Valor as a means to upgrade dungeon drops so you can simply farm for your best items without having to pray to the weekly cache. Aside from the campaign for Unity and the memory, ZM is 100% optional with regards to player power. Shadowlands (as of 9.1.5) is way more alt-friendly than pre-7.3.5 Legion (needing to just pray for that one specific lego to drop, having to grind out AP) or BFA before they added the vendor for essences (because some of those rank 3 grinds were absolutely painful to do once, never mind 3 or 4 times...oh yeah, and mindlessly grinding Islands to hit level 75 on your Heart of Azeroth). Run a dungeon once and you get your lego memory, conduits got really nice catchup mechanics in the past few weeks, and getting to 80 renown on an alt happens while you level (my warrior hit renown 77 from just doing the bonus objectives in Threads and running a couple of dungeons).
So, they're actually taking player feedback into account a lot more than they have in the past (the Legion Lego and BfA Essence and Corruption vendors didn't come out until garbage time for the expansion). There's already a system in place to catch up on tier sets that's going live in a few weeks, so you'll be able to take a fresh alt and get them their 4 piece set bonus, their BiS legos, 80 renown, and all ilvl226 conduits within a day of hitting 60, ready to get into any form of content to want to use them in. Is it perfect? Of course not (I want to see a vendor for dungeon loot the way we had the Azerite Armor vendor all of BfA, and have dungeon gear get a buff in dungeons the way PvP gear gets a buff in PvP content). But the actual dungeon and raid content is still top-tier even if the story has been crap (granted, I always thought WoW's story was weak considering how amazing the actual worldbuilding is). If 10.0 improves on 9.2, I'll definitely be happy. 5.3 was my favorite time in this game, and I wouldn't mind seeing the game return to a more stripped-down gear-oriented progression than getting rewarded with little scraps of power like we got in Legion or BfA. Covenants without the power behind them are seriously friggin' cool, and anima being an expansion-long targeted cosmetic farm has been a lot of fun for me.
BFA was infinitely more alt unfriendly, i should know, i was stuck on my Warrior the whole damn expansion!
@@Kylora2112 I have been enjoying 9.2 and hope it is a sign that 10.0 will continue in the right direction.
Well said with that last sentence. I'm really hoping this expansion is the 'turning point' expansion, or the expansion where things were so low that blizzard can only go up from here.
The positive things I will remember from Shadowlands:
- some dope transmogs!
- I found Torghast fun, but I know not everyone does.
- Sire Denathrius was a badass!
- EVIL. GHOST. BLANCHIE. MOUNT.
Torghast as a challenge mode at its hardest and catchup currency farm at lower difficulties is how it always should have been. It's super fun when you don't *have* to run it every week on ALL your characters.
@@Kylora2112 agreed. I enjoyed playing t on different classes to see what crazy things I could do !
Torghast was fun until you were forced to run it weekly for limited amounts of Soul Ash, once the restraints were removed, it got infinitely better, now all my alts level from 50 to 55 in Torghast.
@@UltimateGamerCC hey it’s a valid complaint! I get it!
@@UltimateGamerCC Definitely. Needing to do exactly 2 layer 8s absolutely sucked. Strolling in to run a couple of 9s in 9.1 to get a lego was actually fun because I didn't need to set aside an entire day to do chores. I actually love SL right now since I only feel the need to do the campaign enough to unlock stuff, then I can just do dungeons or farm anima for mogs and stuff. Alt hit 60? Buy the conduit catchup item and gtg. SL in 9.2 is in a WAY better place than Legion or BfA were in the first bit of their X.3 patches. Like, even if I don't get my 4-piece set (mythic raider) by the time the Creation Catalyst opens, I have the gear to use the system and get my set bonuses. Whereas it took me until midway through Tomb of Sargeras farm to get my Anger of the Half-Giants (Havoc DH's best lego) and my DPS suffering because our resource generation was balanced around that.
Even in shadowlands people were making 3-5 of the same character early because of the Shard system in 9.1 and now again in 9.2 with sets returning.
When you talk about people wanting harder outdoor content I feel like those people asking for that are midcore Heroic/Mythic raiders that want ALL content to be tailored to themselves and never think of anyone else
Like a bad fever dream. It’s quite a feat blizzard convinced me not to buy two whole expansions in a row.
I loved Shadowlands in 9.0 and after 9.1.5, the in-between felt really slow, specifically because they said they weren't doing any more character customizations, which was a box feature (which they fixed) and then the whole scandal issues just really deflated my ability to enjoy the game.
9.1.5 was the first patch of the new team, who actually want to make the game players enjoy, and i started to love the game again. Now it's a blast.
I'm interested to see how 9.2.5 ends up finishing off the expansion, but i think there is still a LOT of good content here.
Solo player unfriendly. Very unfriendly. I finally realized is group oriented for everything. Not just dungeons and raids but everything.
For my own perspective, while there is a fair amount of transmog, mounts and such to collect (and I still try to collect it all because collections), the vast majority of it is things I know that I will never use, because it looks so specifically Shadowlands and non-Azeroth, and in canon I feel that my characters haven't visited the afterlife, tamed some afterlife-cat, and then brought those back to Azeroth as a living creature etc. As you touched on in the video, being able to just Mage portal to the afterlife and chat with anyone who has died just has too massive narrative implications that a large part of me is going to pretend it never happened, and as such the roleplayer in me can't have my characters wearing that stuff...
agreed, there was a lot if transmog. transmog i didnt want.... nothing really stood out to me. the death wasnt death enough. im worried that since the s
death part of shadowlands wasnt on display, that when we get to the holy, light, life, order, arcane parts that nothing will be different
Here's a thought for account wide, on reset day you choose your main every week, so you're not stuck in 1 toon. Then for that week only that toon can gain rep and some currencies and what not. But it's account wide, so there's no toon jumping and farm exalted in week 1
For me, I will remember Shadowlands as the expansion I stopped playing WoW
For the record I liked the Eye of the Jailer mechanic. It's just too bad I couldn't play do to blood plague.
Most people ended up losing their job, I lost my shift, got another shift, and more work to boot.
Should we just say confusing? That's how I would describe it, at first it was fine but this one is just confusing.
All I can say is, it was an expansion. The bar is now so low, not even sure where to go with that thought...Stay healthy all
Knowing now how the story of the Jailer ends, I'm glad that Blizzard wrapped it up in three parts. Dragging the story over four parts only to end up in the same place would have made the ending even more disappointing.
this is probably the best take
The PvP item gap was crap the game was way to grindy but it all makes sense when you understand they were wanting to sell run tokens
it will be remembered as the moment Blizzard said "Out with Arthas and IN with Sylvanas", cause everybody simpin' over a villain.
3:50 imagine if, instead of the lack of imagination Devs currently display, they went with something really after-life-ish. For instance, all lvl 50+ characters die and end up in the SLs, leaving their bodies behind on Azeroth for NPCs and lower level toons to see. Imagine if, for the duration of SL, we could only return to Azeroth as incorporeal beings (for the first couple of patches or so) until we devised a way to come back from death, thus really earning the title of Maw-walkers.
Personally, once again I can't but praise the work of artists in WoW: they have carried the rest of the caravan entirely on their shoulders. Them, and encounter-designers, I suppose.
yeah, i was just thinking about this too. i feel blizz failed for shadowlands. there werent new continents or planets. this was the fucking death realm. and there was not enough story or character development to be here.
Thrall: "Now remember. When anyone asks what happened in the giant sky portal over Icecrown we say..."
Chorus: "Never mind all that."
Thrall: "Good. Good. Why does it feel like we forgot something?"
Azeroth, with the giant sword still sticking in her: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!"
Thrall: "Eh, probably not important."
The Maw was one of the worst things about Shadowlands. It's one thing to have difficult content/world areas but another to have a zone designed to limit your access and punish you for playing it (no mounts, eye of the jailer, etc.) I hated setting foot in the Maw and was only there for the minimal amount of time required. I think it's why 9.1 was so terrible also - those Maw Assaults were just shit...at least after the first couple times. All in all the thing that hurt shadowlands the most would have to be the insane content drought periods. It just felt stale after a short amount of time. Having such a small pool of dungeons for that long a period of time gets old quicker than it should have.
I remember bailing before it released and going to ffxiv 😂 Now I’m back and having a good time in s4 of DF
you summed it up. this is the solo player's expansion . guild recruiting has been impossible.
lol hardly, if it was the solo player's expansion then we would've gotten tier progression, if anything season 3 is ALL about group content.
SL introduced Buttflaps on armour and for that it'll always be special
Zones need to be a little bit bigger. Especially added zones for each patch.
I think there's two key factors:
1) I think Shadowlands was doomed to be compared to WoD as soon as they cut content; the fact the game is widely seen as worse for it gives it a nice kinship with WoD that makes it feel to many like "WoD, again." That actually works in the game's favor in the near term, because we can't help but see the next expac as a potential Legion. Sure, we were already fooled once with the whole TIck Tock expac cadence finally being broken, but I think just about everyone would love to see 10.0 be like Legion 2.0: a new renaissance for the game. If the team can deliver an expac that is broadly liked (if not loved) like Legion was, we'll likely see folks look a lot more kindly on Shadowlands, and solidly place it above WoD on overall rankings. Shadowlands may be "objectively' better than WoD in the estimation of many (Azmon made this point recently), but there is definitely a kinship between Shadowlands and WoD that can't be denied.
2) There've been several expacs in a row now where Blizz has rolled out their big System for the expac, the community demonstrates it's broken and ill-considered in less time than it takes to watch The Batman, and Blizz just carries on full-steam ahead bold as brass. The practical reality is you can't change tentpole systems like this quickly, but when the result is your pitch fails before the game even launches and you push the boat out anyway, you'll spend the entire xpack backfooted with angry players. This isn't about reacting to community feedback after the fact, this is all on Blizzard: 10.0's inevitable System needs to be EXCELLENT. It needs to hold up to the intense screening it will immediately receive, so it can be authenticated as Certified Excellent. Team 2 needs to show the players they know what they're doing.
TLDR: if 10.0 is a banger, all is forgiven, Shadowlands goes down as definitively better than WoD and even BFA, since it'll retroactively get credit for laying the foundation for 10.0
I have liked every Xpac, each have had their Up's and Down's but overall I have enjoyed all of them. I don't over analyze and do not blindly follow the social media crowd that shits on everything these days.
Empty promises, over selling stuff, under delivering, gas lighting its players, lying to its customers... So many to choose from
The worst part of shadow lands is we now have a portal into death so if people die it doesn't matter at all.
I’ve played wow since classic. I am a believer that tbc, wotlk, and cata were the best wow has ever been.
In shadowlands i felt like the game isnt wow anymore. All the hand holding quests that are required to build your character is not the wow that i remember. Im on my third month in shadowlands. The constant upgrading and questing pulls me away from what i find fun and thats pvp. But then again the pvp in shadowlands isnt all that good also so there isnt much left.
in other words,
did you know Pepe is in Zereth ?
coordinates - 63:3 at the very top of the map.
Pepe is having a romantic dinner by himself!
.... could this mean hes a first one, too? ..hmm..
I think they are really good at making the expansions good at the end, they need to make they better from the start, its really just all the chores I don't like, everything else is fine for me, mostly
Forgettable was my first thought, as well. But, I also don’t *hate* it.
Hard disagree about SL being good for solo players because of the cosmetics. Solo players were intentionally denied gear progression through Torghast or other means, and even tier set bonuses in 9.2. (Cosmetic rewards are for everyone.)
Honestly if they hadnt made covenants such a pita to switch people might have given them a break on the expansion. But first impressions are a big deal and covenants were a big negative blocking people from 75% of the story endgame.
Personally felt 9.1 was brutal. Korthia sucked starting Week 2.
SoD sucked majorass. Domination sockets where mega boring too.
The problem with Shadowlands is that it only technically gave us things. Sure, we got tons of transmog and all but the activity to get it is the exact same tasks. Collecting foozles from a unique mob to get a thing is good. Simplified example of the problem: collecting foozles from that unique mob for a dozen things isn't.
As for mob difficulty, the real issue with game play is that most abilities are unnecessary for running around in the open world. Blizzard has hypertuned the game for one style of play and it just isn't as fun in other contexts.
You know why some of the older expansions that we sh*t on when they were out we look back on and say oh maybe they weren't that bad is because the expansions that we're getting now are getting worse and worse so yeah in retrospect those expansions aren't so bad compared to this s*** we're getting now so you can say whatever you want but it's not like we're looking back with rose-tinted glasses we're looking back and comparing what we thought was s*** to the s*** we got now
Barely played any of shadowlands, altho some stuff seemed fun , i feel like blizzard's receipe is to always make the first year very average so the ending of the expansion can shine a little bit compared to its start
The long content droughts combined with the massive Blizzard lawsuit tainted the experience for sure. I didn't hate Shadowlands though, in fact in the beginning I thought it was great.
agreed, what has sucked more than anything is the long lapses in content, in fact there was so little content they timegated it to make it look like more than it really was. still it's miles above BFA, that expansion to me was the worst expansion of all time.
Never heard of anyone wanting harder outdoor zones, that was something that turned me off took so long to travel to do callings.... I have heard maybe some more challenging solo player content like the mage tower....
Worst xpac ever that caved to raidloggers and destroyed casual content and rewards
Why is solo content always thought of as pets, transmog, pets, etc.? I'm happy that people can get it but why can't we get solo action content that provides some progression too. Not to M+ or heroic raid level, but so something other than dailies would be nice.q
tell the diehards, they believe if you want anything of real worth, you must proceed through the big 3, and Blizzard obviously agrees with this, for Tier Sets require group content, the highest Conduit lvls require group content and finally Sockets for this season are locked behind group content.
We needed more dungeons like past expansions. Less systems and better ways to catch up with alts.
Shadowlands improved with each patch. It isn't the worst xpac - that was Cataclysm and WoD was also worse. SL had a lot of WoD flavor that didn't work for WoD, and didn't work much better in SL. Nothing with the Sylvanus story worked in any way. The cinimatics were bad - some of them were poorly animated. But most of the raiding was entertaining (Except, again, for Sylvanus which was perhaps the worst design for a boss fight in the history of WOW). It's the Covid expac so there are things that will always have been impacted by it. I like Zerith Mortis a fair amount.
I'll remember Shadowlands for the story that butchered much of the lore, but could have been a lot worse.
I will remember shadowlands as the expansion I started to play in… bad timing I guess :/
I happen to enjoy a lot of things about SL, but realistically I don't think SL will be remembered fondly. Disregard the drama with Blizzard and the real world issues going on at the time and you still have a pretty mediocre expansion that suffers the same way other mediocre expansions suffer.
Maybe this is a bit simplistic, but I feel like players need something to carry over from one expansion to another. Maybe this isn't 100% accurate, but successful expansions introduce something for players which helps them personalize their experience, things that have lasting value, and they usually aren't transmogs, or mounts or pets or achievements. The things that have lasting value are an evolution to our classes, or an introduction of new classes. At the end of the day we aren't Mr. Breezy of 123 fake street, we're Sir Paladin Breezy of the Horde, because that's who we want to be when we play WoW, we want that level of immersion. So, Green Fire for Warlocks, Special mounts for all classes in Legion, these sorts of things have value... Unfortunately, Blizzard doesn't do a lot of this stuff, instead they opt in for temporary powers and systems, parasitic systems which are much easier to corral when needed.
If you read this far, thank you, if not here's the TLDR - Blizzard needs to step away from parasitic borrowed powers, and needs to invest in class fantasy and give the players things that have lasting value. If they do this then an expansion will be good, if not, then you have another SL, another WoD, another 10.0 11.0 12.0
Worse expac ever by far and I played WoD religiously
Well I will remember Shadowlands fondly because I started playing wow during Shadowlands. I thought it was an interesting tale and having played through a lot of the old expansions I think it might be easier to think of these expansions as more self contained stories on the same world rather than hoping for them to all hang together. That being said I am hopeful that Shadowlands will set up for a nice fresh story. And yes I’m very satisfied with the gearing and cosmetic opportunities for more solo players like myself! I even liked Torghast cause it was nice having a personal dungeon I could do with any size group and fun buffs! So there =p
I only hated certain expansions I was one of the few that liked both wod and bfa while it was current. Ironically I didn't like legion as much as most people.
Was shadowlands good for casuals? I hear people say there is so much cosmetics and such for solo players but I hear that the lack of content for casuals is whats killing the game
there is lack of content for everyone to be bluntly honest, 10 Dungeons with 8 being available as of 9.0, 3 Raids total being 1 per patch, 7 Questing Zones total, barely anything new for PVP and timegating that was so bad you got maybe 30 minutes to an hour of content per week.
Whats shadowlands?
Bringing back the pvp Stat for pvp gear instead of changing I level would have been better. This Expansion was kinda fun but I also was not happy with it. Wow really needs yo fuxking knock it out of the park next Expansion or I'm afraid I'm just not gonna be playing it anymore. And that makes me sad, because I love wow.
call it copium if you want, but i firmly believe we hit rock bottom, it can only go up from here.
As a solo tranmog player, no. This expansion sucked. Grinding anima to fill out a shopping list with little or no engaging story is not fun. As a solo player the biggest gripe I have is not being able to do endgame content. Thats not because it takes longer to get those transmog, its because we want to see and experience the story without a bunch of idiots. I want to chill and take pictures in the raid instead of being shuffled to the next objective. I like to enjoy everything the art team has to offer at my pace. However having that pace be regulated sucks as much as being rushed through a dungeon. Maybe if the content was good I would feel better playing alts to get other transmogs. With this exspansion though, fuck that. Playing the game is no longer worth collecting the rewards.
I think a good way to judge shadowlands is to play through it once everything is out. Like WOD, it's not great in the moment but good when you have it all without the wait.
Time gating stuff is Blizzard farming players wallets with subs. Shadowlands is the expansion of Time gating
there was not enough of a death theme in shadowlands for me. zereth mortis seems like a holy, order, life thing going on. only maldraxxus seemed sort of dead. yeah bastion was elysian fields and i realize they didnt want all of it too seem too much of the same. hopefully the realm of death will be revisited in 5 years i guess. needed more death knight content perhaps. felt lacking on many fronts. disappointing.
I think I will remember shadowlands fondly. The content drought is easy to forget. I enjoyed dranor personally. We got some really cool zones, transmogs, mounts, and soul shapes. This expansion has been fun, and for the first part of it at least I got to raid and do m+ with some cool peeps.
I miss BfA.
In order of worst, BFA, SL, a distant third WOD.
BFA started the terrible A story of Sylvanas- and gave us the terrible, under-baked patches of Ashara and N'zoth. Bonus, at least those stories were completed. Terdrassil burning forever will stain this one.
Shadowlands continuation of the terrible Mary Sue Sylvanas story the fell apart for logical inconsistency. The Jailer barely a character. Like WOD, the story was cut, but this one comes of way more disjointed and ends on another cliff hanger. As a sole player, no, I do not like this expansion because of the 4 covenant BS. If the stories were open to play all on one main- then yes.
WOD, I do remember fondly. I never like the premise of alternate Draenor, but they made the story fun. Plot points, even cut short, payed off. I knew it was missing the middle, but the quality and game play did not suffer for it. It felt like they cut the B plots and tied up the A plots best they could. Yeah, Grom and Yearl at the end felt weird- but the goal of taking down Gul'dan and the Iron Horde was completed.
Personally I’ve enjoyed it. The story could be better absolutely, but I’d put SL above BFA, and WoD in terms of an overall expansion maybe above Cata too cause I didn’t like it after the first patch. My favorite expansions are still Wrath, MoP, and Legion though.
Before wod, cata was criticized and afted wod bfa and systemlands took the crown. Because they were really awfully planned but legion was not this criticized so I wonder why it happened? Would it be cuz the last two expansions did suck that much more than wod? 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
Shadowlands will be remembered as the death throes of the "Era of Systems". End-stage systemization. Stage 4 Systemitis. I have my doubts, but I hope Ion and the gang finally realize what players have been screaming since 2016: end-game progression systems make the game worse. Full stop.
Or at the very least, I hope Ion is demoted. If he can't learn and react to feedback, then he doesn't deserve his position. He's quite bad at it.
It'll also (not) be remembered as one of the messiest, most forgettable expansions to date. An incomprehensible pile of retcons, plot threads that go nowhere, and horrible character assassinations that will mean nothing a year after SL.
I am just a PVE player and not a high level raider etc but I had fun during this expansion. All the stuff people hated just didn't bother me much
Badly.
9.0 was so good, I think if the time between patches wasn't so long then I think it would have been better. 9.1 with domination shards and long korthia grinds was the low point other than the wait.
Every expansion to me has "had its bad parts", but I've enjoyed all of them throughout the course of time. Nothing has been so terrible that it's made me look poorly back upon a previous expansion or even hate the whatever the current one is at the time. Everyone hated Azerite gear, Essences, Visions, etc, and I liked most of those systems even at the time. I loved covenant permenance of Shadowlands, preferred it even, I was a minority apparently, but I went into this expansion expecting to pick one and never change, and I was OKAY with that. The raids are great, the story has been "fine." Some people don't get it, but a lot of this stuff, even the "retcons" is no different than the Chronicles books. It's just MORE information on top of information we already had, it doesn't CHANGE those actions/events one bit.
Nah.
I hated WoD then and I look back years later and still say it is one of the worst expansions I have ever played.
Soul I really once respected you, until I saw...
... your t-shirt.
Time gating
Nah the grind was fine, the content was shit, 2 torghsts a week on every alt :) + anima at start + PvP + Conduits just so I can play more than 1 class or switch a class, also renown
nothing about this expansion respects your time and efforts.
just when i thought i was excited to get flying in ZM. i learned that being in the air in ZM gets your more aggro than on the ground. but not only that, most of the shitty mobs in ZM have a specific cast to dismount you. no other mobs from any other expansions does this. why are mobs from the realm of creation do that? theres no logic, reason, or rhyme to it. even the roaming mobs on argus or the horrific vision invasion crap wasnt even this bad. shit, i even prefer to deal with those big ass nzoth worms that debuff u than be absolutely dismounted.
Literally, being dismounted feels like molestation from some greasy dev thats trolling their players. mega toxic
Pandemic and lawsuit. That's probably it.
6.1 was WAY worse than 9.0.5.
As hot garbage
Shadowlands worse than WoD, worst 2 xpacs, then vanilla which isn't an xpac but those are the 3 worst. Low key BFA pretty good, azerite gear sucked but was resolved. But ya Shadowlands is really bad. Little raids in terms of how much we got, little(volume) dungeons, and dungeons just aren't that good. Mists is number 1. Then put others where ever you want. BFA has best dungeons of any xpac tho.
Azerite never got in a good spot. Essences helped, but it took way too long for them to add account wide ones. BFA was not a good expansion.
@@NoobGamer-di1dw in my opinion it has the best dungeons of any xpac so I give it more dues than others
For me Legion was worst expansion to this date..
Think World Quest were best part, but each other system had such a fatal flaws people don't remember and don't talk about..
Crybabylands....tubers and the crying they don't get what they want, then make vids to make money off us