I think I’ve been able to put my finger on precisely why I can’t get invested in this expansion. I can’t think of a single feature that it introduced that will survive once the 10.0 patch hits.
No new races, no new classes, no new professions, nothing like glyphs or new talents, no new ways to experience the game at all. There has been no inherent shift in the paradigm of the game.
Even the one new “feature” that I could have made a case for, with the addition of character customization, has essentially proved to be a “one-off” and not a continuing focus.
Everything new is Shadowlands exclusive. Which means that, when the inevitable reset button is hit with the next expansion release, nothing will have mattered.
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Uhh… mount reskins? Battle pet expansion?
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I’m hope I’m wrong because I do like surprises but once the covenants combine their power to seal the sky or banish the jailer or organize Arthas and Uther’s counselling sessions everything will be drained the Shadowlands will be saved and we’ll move onto the next expansion.
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PvP vendors…oops they are not new sry.
Maybe Vault, but Vault sucks.
What about Torghast…oh sh** It sucks.
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Mounts and battle pets aren’t new systems. They were introduced in classic and Cataclysm, respectively.
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Maybe Anima setting the stage for a grindable currency which fuels cosmetic purchases moving forward in future xpacs? I know Anima is a modified AP system for cosmetics instead of stats but perhaps this is a test.
Also I should proof read harder
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I wouldn’t be surprised if some covenant abilities become a row of talent options or even baseline like with what happened to artifact powers.
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They’ve set up a few precedents, but these aren’t exactly systems that will carry over. They’re systems that they can learn from when they completely reinvent them for the next expansion. Like how MoP Challenge dungeons evolved into Mythic+, or how the Mage Tower devolved into Torghast.
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Oh! i thought of one! You can change your spirit healer to bwonsamdi… there’s your one thing that SL brings to the table… a cannibalized element from BFA!
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Oh they are for sure going to keep the Vault, it’ll go through reskins and one expansion they’ll make the rewards worse because “they didn’t think it was fair to X group that enjoy doing X content” but then another time they’ll put better gear back in etc etc
You can call the vault how it is “vanilla vault” and throughout the next few expansions they’ll add some tedious new mechanics to “liven” it up
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Chromie??? Nice change to the leveling experience that will probably stay around for a while.
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The Vault isn’t really a new system, though - it’s just an expansion of an existing system introduced in Legion. That being said, it is a welcome evolution.
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Another welcome restructuring, but it’s still all old content. It doesn’t really give you a new way to experience the game world - it just tries to make that experience more coherent.
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My guess is sub-classes might be a thing but i highly doubt that lol.
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With that way of thinking you can compare almost anything and claim it is similar to this or that since WoW has such a big history to pull from. Even when new races or classes are introduced people call out reskin or that’s just like another class, it’s never ending with these forums.
New to me and I been playing since Wrath.
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If subclasses were coming, they would have been hyped to the moon and back long before Shadowlands released.
On that note… are there still people that believe that a new class is coming during this expansion? I remember the denials right after the announcement with people claiming that the new class would be coming with a patch.
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Nothing as of now. Even the story seems like a throw away that’s going to get the alternate Draenor treatment as soon as we beat the Jailer and seal the hole above Icecrown. You’ll likely never interact with these characters again
This expansion really triples down on the concept of rented progress. Your cosmetic rewards don’t truly belong to you. You basically lease them from your covenant. It definitely makes your time played feel meaningless in a way.
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Hopefully nothing. Not one system. Not the follower tables, not the covenants, not Torghast, pathfinder, time gates on factions…heck, lets just forget about the last 4 expansions and we should be good to go.
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Gotta love how you can summarize WoD as, “Gul’dan was resurrected,” and not miss a beat in the narrative.
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Valor, if they keep the current garbage loot rates and item levels of mythic plus.
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