I get the hype for the new expansion – it’s something new and exciting but here’s why I want to stress at least a tiny bit of cynicism:
This is all just my opinion.
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Lack of Substantive Features – I’ts very apparent that even in the features guide/highlight there was an alarming lack of actual foundational features in this expansion aside from Covenants, and a replayable end game Tower. This tower for all we know could be the same look floor to floor and just have a slight difference in mobs and that’s it. No ability to ‘win’. Covenants are practically rehashed order halls – could be great could be meh, siding on meh to be safe.
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Similar Tropes/ Lack of Originality – incredible amount of comparisons with respect to zones like Azuna/Shadowmoon Valley (WoD) and Stormheim with new zones. Armour Sets are rehashes of past sets, aside from Ardenwald. I.e Necro set seems like a rehash of assets from Cloth Battle for Dazar’alor, Vampire set is practically the same thing as Gladiator Legion DK set/ Antorus Set. Plus still no tier sets with respect to classes even though a substantive portion of the community wants them back.
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Character Specific Expansion – let’s be honest, and granted at least in my opinion, this expansion seems to be a simple expansion of the Sylvannis story arc, with too many loose ends remaining from BFA. ex. Teldrassil / Night Warrior story – with promises of Tyrande only being mentioned in one zone of the next expansion. Also the sword in the ground? Like hello?
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Player Vs. Player Content – where is it? Where are PVP vendors? Why are they still being kept from the community? Who knows.
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Talents – Still only seven rows of talents. I understand we are getting new abilities with respect to Covenants, however why can’t we have something foundational to our class that will not be simply getting removed after this next expansion.
Final thoughts; I want to be excited, but to be honest this expansion has me feeling worried, now more than ever. I don’t see new and exciting features, if anything the new things are making me worry. Will it be good enough? Can I trust them to not have it be a third mistake? The covenant system just feels uninspiring, it seems to similar to class halls, the entire lore of Shadowlands seems rushed, leaving behind too many loose ends. I was stoked for BFA and honestly I felt really betrayed by what I had thought it would be. I see a lack of features, a lack of originality in the new expansion; citing lack of interesting and original sets, lack of original features, and I’m genuinely most worried about the Tower content. I’ve played a mobile game and it had a tower feature similar to what’s being discussed and I genuinely cannot think of how soul crushingly boring it became and how fast it became boring. Idk, maybe it’s just me but there are just my thoughts.
These are just some of the reasons I’m a little less optimistic, but still hopeful. What do you guys think of the new expansion? What would you like to see? What has you worried?
Remember, this is all just my opinion.
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I think shadowlands ends up the “fix it” expansion.
- Professions relevant again with gem slots.
- Unpruning.
- World quest revamp (eg World quest system 2.0)
- Patchfinder altered
- Reputation revamp
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I hope so. I’d like to see old content become relevant in some way. I’d support that direction. Then again I started in BfA… lol.
We literally have only seen a 5 min clip and it’s year away but according to the forums it’s already a failure
Typical forum behavior 
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I don’t need anyone to tell me not to be optimistic. I’ve been playing long enough to know better. At the same time, if I weren’t optimistic, I would have quit the instant they announced the removal of 70 of my levels. But I’m willing to wait and see how things will work out.
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This type of comment continues to crop up just before every expansion and sorry to say, but every single time they’ve been wrong. WoD it happened, Legion it happened – then it was saved about two-three months before it ended, and BFA back to being bad. I’m sorry but this type of comment is just so striking to me because it’s just insane to me to consistently see so much defense of a bad track record.
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Think of it like someone being abused that’s convinced themselves the abuser will change, telling you it’s going to be different this time. Wait and see.
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Most of the stuff looks alright to me, but I’m rather disappointed that we didn’t get cross-faction play, a new class, a new talent row, or tier sets back.
The things that sting the most to me are the lack of a new talent row and not getting tier sets back. We’ve had seven talent rows for three expansions, soon to be four. Tier sets made raiding more appealing to people, and ensured raiding didn’t lose out to M+ during the one expansion both existed in. Without tier, why would you do raids for gear when you can just spam high M+ keys all day and get geared with the same basic gear infinitely quicker?
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Right?! I mean, how dare they not reveal and talk about everything that they are STILL working on for Shadowlands?! I doubt the people here would jump the gun and judge them for systems and changes that are still being developed. I’m sure they’d completely understand that they are still unfinished and require time to fully complete. GD’s always been a bastion of understanding and sanity.
Sylvannas was used as a plot device to open the door to the greater cosmology if the Warcraft universe.
Remember warlords leading into legion?
We went back in time because they thought it would be cool to see draenor and all of that, BUT the bigger picture was to bring back Gul’dan to usher in the return of the legion. It was messy, but effective.
As for features, they have dungeons, raids, war mode, covenants, torghast, personalizes legendary crafting, 5 new zones, obviously more coming.
If you get bored, work on your pathfinder and stop complaining! Sheesh!
Another same old same old comment of “omg haha guys just relax its not even out yet and ur complaining” and then we get wod, legion (beginning), and bfa. soz comment
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What would you consider an exciting feature?
In Cartmans Voice I do what I want!
But really similar tropes? They only got so much they can do in the Warcraft world that hasn’t been done before. They’ve gotta branch out but still make it realistic in a sense so yes, those zones have counterparts lol. It’s like Wonderland in a way, topsy turvy.
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i’m trying not to speculate too too much…it’s over a year away and not even in alpha or beta. I’m sure feedback in those phases will be more than anything I reflect on from a conversation at blizzcon…
i’m optimistic though…it would have to be horrible to be worse than BfA or WoD…
So does that make it a WoD 2.0? Where WoD did the time warp, we’re doing the death warp this time?
Only because posts about how an expansion has failed after being announced keep cropping up. Your opinion isn’t fact.
Do we really need new and exciting features? I would be happy if they put the energy they usually do in features that fail such as islands, warfronts or scenarios and instead just make more raids and dungeons.
Second you are ignoring a bunch of announced features in order to make this claim. They have a whole new solo/small group roguelike content plus the experimental zone the Maw. Plus the soul bind / covenant feature which is a deepening of the reputation system. On top of that we get to craft our own legendary.
I mean be skeptical if you want but it might be more beneficial to talk about the feature you wanted to see and don’t.
You should ask yourself why my type of posts continue to crop up and you might have something
I dunno, I like to be optimistic. Sure beats being an edge lord.
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I know why posts like yours keep cropping up. Blizzard not tailoring their game to fit individual tastes/play styles.
It’s the same reason posts about wow is dying or dead keep cropping up.
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