Let us not forget how the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard also damaged the game during Shadowlands.
I’m pretty sure that also took a effect on the loss of subscriptions.
I started in Shadowlands and loved everything about it, but the hardcore and loyal fans hated Shadowlands.
It definitely looms large in the collective memory of this community.
Yeah I really like the art design, but to be fair it’s the type of thing I enjoy once in a while after playing through DF/TWW. It’s like wow look at all the rich colors. But back then, seeing Bastion on a daily basis got on my nerves at some point ngl
Sure and part of that drop was because of borrowed power and covenants. But as I said it only impacted the top players.
Now the part you forgot, part was because of COVID, part was because of all the buzz over Final Fantasy XIV and a paper from an investors meeting said they lost Chinese players around that time.
“RUUUUIIIN”
“Keep dreaming, little one! Your mother is not here to save you”
“All I see are booooks”
“Rot… and DIIIIE”
“GREAT FISH GATHER IN DROVES”
“Birds of a feather die together”
idk id say df was plenty memorable, it was just weak in terms of storytelling or trying to spice it up
the raids were pretty good, dungeons were okay… ish aside from some tuning issues in hoi/rlp
Why do people confuse “hot take” with just “nonsense garbage”?
They aren’t synonyms.
I remember not remembering much about shadowlands except the lore being bad.
*citation needed
yeah bc of how bad it was lol
one of my favorite things is seeing people defend something years later. from Ghostcrawler, to WoD, to SL
I remember spending a lot of time during SL doing things in older expansions.
Having an expansion bomb that badly when people were forced to stay home is pretty memorable I guess.
Yeah, I remember hating it.
Shadowlands ruined tanking for me, possibly forever.
Kite Tanking + Prideful was hands down one of the worst experiences they have ever put in this game.
Walking in the Maw? Never. Again. Tons of verticality in zones and taking way too long to open up flying also ruined the zones.
Horrible unskippable starting quests for WAY too long… outrageously expensive legendaries required to even remotely be competitive… awful alt experiences.
Devs refusing to pull the ripcord, and refusing to listen – to the point of obstinance. The hubris in these people. This expansion also just shaped how they lie to us about listening to our feedback now.
Now they just pretend like they’re giving us what we ask for while undermining the changes so that everything is worse or basically the same. – Look at M+ for the perfect example. “We hate these affixes, too many mechanics.” So they make the affixes all passive except 1, and add more mechanics to the dungeons to undermine removing active affixes.
Then ignore all feedback about dungeons being overtuned/buggy messes and complaints about how people hate tyrannical.
Also, they put a ton of work into Shadowlands – so the other lesson they learned is to try less hard. Which is why DF and TWW feel so cheap. Get more money w/ faster releases, do less work.
The TL;DR of Shadowlands was “We know better than you, shut up and suffer. Wait where are you going. Okay we promise to listen, and then just be sneaky about trying to make you suffer instead… also you guys hate everything we do anyways, so we’re just gonna stop trying.”
It was memorable like remembering the Space Shuttle Columbia burning up when it re entered the atmosphere and both the crew and flight staff didn’t think that was gonna be the outcome as it was happening and it could’ve been prevented.
Seriously though, I think BFA was because of those cinematics. The Sylvannas stuff leading up to her exiting was interesting, even if it did botch things.
lol. where? just about every realm is merged via phasing and the zones are still empty. lfg finders cant even make it pass 2-3 scrolls before bottoming out.
h ttps://imgur.com/a/crvGNiR
Its 6am eastern time. On a Wednesday.
I have about 43 groups in group finder when I only show ones with a tank already.
the robot ghosts in azure vault and aberuss were peak blizzard writing. Don’t forget about the sleeping dragons who wake up and want to destroy the mortals living off the land they once inhabited.
People were just pissed about the lore in shadowlands because it hit a little hard the revelation that you’re just pretending to be a robot when you play this game, and you’re not some angelic beacon of light saving the universe.
The only two expansions worse than Shadowlands are DF and TWW.
but for there to be 8 million subs you would need at least 500k to 1mil groups in the finder at peak peak peak hours, and that is low balling it with consideration that not even half the population goes into group finder.
i doubt there is more than 1 mil subs right now in game.
Shadowlands is memorable. Its remembered for being awful.