Maybe this’ll finally cleanup the city chat channels, WTS groups and general douchebag behavior that gets reported and nothing happens.
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It looks like the blue post changed fast. 7 hours ago it still read “max Renown”:
Players who reach max Renown for their Covenant will be able to freely switch among any of the four Covenants without cooldown or restriction. Cosmetic rewards, including pets and mounts, that have been earned from that covenant will thereafter be available regardless of your membership in a different one. Covenant switching and the use of cosmetic rewards will also apply to any alternate characters once the Renown threshold is reached on one character.
Conduit Energy is being removed and Conduits will be freely swappable without any restrictions.
Completing a Covenant campaign on one character will allow alternate characters the ability to skip that same Covenant’s campaign, earning the Renown and a third Soulbind unlock immediately without needing to replay the full narrative arc.
Learn more about the design decisions behind these changes in our Shadowlands Development Update.
Now (6pm PT, August 27, 2021) it has been replaced by this “high Renown threshold”:
In the next few days, we will be updating our Public Test Realm with a first look at Patch 9.1.5. Alongside feature updates like new Timewalking experiences (this time we’re revisiting Legion, with a couple of twists…), these “.5” patches, falling in between full content tiers, present an opportunity to focus on balance and revision of core systems based on feedback and data from the season so far. Patch 9.1.5 will include several significant changes to the Shadowlands Covenant systems in particular:
- Once you’ve reached a high Renown threshold, you will thereafter be able to freely switch among any of the four Covenants without cooldown or restriction, as well as use cosmetic rewards that you have earned from one covenant even if you are currently a member of a different one. Both the Covenant switching and the use of cosmetic rewards will also apply to alts once the Renown threshold is reached on one character.
- Conduit Energy is being removed - Conduits will be freely swappable without restriction.
- When playing alternate characters, if you have already completed a given Covenant’s campaign on a different character, you will be able to immediately earn the Renown and third soulbind unlock without needing to replay the full narrative arc.
While we hope many players will be pleased at the increased accessibility and freedom for experimentation these changes will permit, we know that you might be wondering why we didn’t make adjustments like these sooner. After all, a large portion of the community has been vocal about wanting to see changes along these lines since mid-2020, when Shadowlands was still in Beta.
When it comes to the limitations on Covenant-switching, millions of players experienced Shadowlands for the first time through the lens of their Covenant of choice, and that would have not been possible had the choice carried less weight from the outset. Nevertheless, after the conclusion of the Chains of Domination campaign, the Covenants are united against the Jailer, and revisiting player feedback in that context has led us to re-evaluate our approach. In terms of the day-to-day player experience, the advantages of a rigid division between Covenants have diminished since Shadowlands launched, while the downsides (feeling disadvantaged in certain types of content, or having to choose between mechanical advantages and aesthetics) have only grown. That balance of factors no longer justifies the original limitations on Covenant-switching, so in 9.1.5 we’re looking to provide a way to circumvent them.
Conduit Energy, however, is a different story. The system simply has not played out the way we hoped it would. We should have heeded community feedback and taken a different direction a year ago. A majority of players largely ignore the system and are unaffected by it, while the minority who want to engage in multiple content types competitively feel constrained by it. Overall, that adds up to a negative experience. Conduit Energy isn’t really making the game better in any appreciable way, so we’re removing the system entirely.
As for the Covenant campaign skip for alts and the ability to freely swap Covenants on alts, that change is one outgrowth of many ongoing discussions within the development team, focused on feedback that at times players feel that the WoW content they most enjoy is locked behind experiences that aren’t nearly as appealing to them. Some of that feedback revolves around different playstyles and content types, but a consistent theme is that experiences that were fun the first time through start to lose their luster on repeat playthroughs on alts, especially when required for power progression. So just as the Threads of Fate system exists to allow players to skip the level-up zone narrative on subsequent playthroughs, we want to give max-level players a similar option to avoid having to replay a Covenant campaign they’ve already done.
As the 9.1.5 PTR progresses, we hope to roll out several other changes aimed at giving you more flexibility in choosing how you prefer to adventure in Azeroth. We’ll have more details to follow as we finalize our plans. Stay tuned for full PTR notes in the near future, and we look forward to discussion and feedback to guide us in our ongoing improvements to World of Warcraft.
–The World of Warcraft Team
Source: Shadowlands Developer Update
OK, thats a good sign then. Perhaps they rethought the max level thing given how many people stopped bothering to level up Renown due to burn out and disinterest. And also, what max level? It keeps going up all the time.
I wont be surprised if its 50, which would tie in more closely with the story.
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Also, save me rereading - do they mention the covenant mounts? Will I be able to fly on my delightfully oogly Malraxxian fly mount when Im currently choosing Bastion? I mean they have to loosen that limitation at some stage, since after Shadowlands I wont be in any Covenants…
Oh please, you’re one of the most adamant defenders of Madeleine Roux despite her racism and misandry and sexism.
I bet you see someone in trade saying “I am a male” and you report them and expect their account to be locked and unable to log in and play because they didn’t get a 2 week ban for being male.
But in all seriousness I honestly believe you’re probably the kind of person that wants everyone and anyone punished and silenced who doesn’t 100% agree with you.
Racism and chats about assault and people who harass others with derogatory language should have action taken against them no doubt.
I’m sorry but I legit believe you most likely abuse the report/flagging system on the forums and in-game for any slight thing someone says you don’t like.
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So am I. Sorry that personal attacks and abuse are necessary in a forum discussion. Its one reason Im finding the forums so unpleasant of late. You may not like someone’s opinion and thats fine, but using it as a stick to beat them with is unnecessary and frankly demeaning.
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If anything these new rules will most likely backfire on them and end up getting them perma-silenced for racism. It would be hilarious poetic justice. Said individual has used and said so many derogatory statements just on these forums alone that would’ve been a permanent ban on games like FFXIV. 
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Hope they come down harder on griefers, they have been a problem since the game started.
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I predict a surge of “I was banned for no reason!” very soon.
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you named your character after a moron that slept with his Alzheimer’s patient of a mother…
and you want change for a succubus…
sit down
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Sort of off-topic here, but do you realize that your character name could be seen as offensive to some (most likely to be women)?
I don’t particularly care but that is kind of the world that we live in now.
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LOL. Taken from a certain point of view, your name could also been seen as offensive…
The day that type of crazy stuff enters games is the day I stop playing. 
you know how you could buy all the items and re-sale for high price? no more of that toxicity, Billy. you auction like you’re told!!
Possibly, but my name is not actually a slang term, so a bit less likely.
Yours is a straight-up slang term though.
The world is kooky right now (with no end in sight) and the nature of the Blizzard lawsuit is almost guaranteed to bring a lot of over-compensation with it (to the creators and the players)… so I am expecting a bumpy ride.
Out of curiosity I had to google to find out how that worked re the toon name, since Id never considered it (the name was created because I wanted to find a suitable name for a tiny hunter, height-wise). And yes, its a weird slang usage aint it.
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It’s actually a pretty funny, and frighteningly descriptive word when used as such.
It does fit your character theme but it I have to admit that it makes me chuckle to find out that you were unaware.
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Yep when I play WoW I literally gear up my mind to go to war. The other players are the hard part.
FFXIV I gear up to learn and have fun.
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They’ve had years to fix the toxic trade chat and common chats, pvp chats, etc and have refused to. Now that they’ve lost money they want to listen? Nah.
Seriously can’t upvote this point enough.
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More reason to not talk or associate with anyone in game.
People file false reports all the time. They flag posts on these forums that they don’t agree with so who’s to say they won’t pull this garbage in game.
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