I think this expansion might finally split the playerbase

So I’ve been investing a lot of time thinking about shadowlands the past few days, mainly because I bought it and it’s interesting to follow. To me it’s insane to see the viewer drop off on twitch. I feel like… this was the “last chance” expansion for a lot of people, again. I almost think the people praising it as the best expansion ever is jarring because so many people don’t like it, so they feel alienated by a lot of streamers and general forums praising it. With legion, most people agreed it was good at first, even the haters. Most people agreed bfa was bad. So if you were someone that didn’t like what blizzard was doing, you still felt like the community sentiment made sense overall and you felt in sync.

I feel like with this expansion a lot of people praising this expansion as good will make many people just leave in indifference and they won’t come back. In fact, I’d say this expansion just creates a feeling of indifference in me - there is nothing to hate or love about it. It’s something where I want to just not care about it.

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I have played every expansion at launch since Wrath, and the game almost continuously since the summer of 2008. I hate this expansion. I knew I hated it while it was in beta. The only part of find interesting is the story, but I absolutely loath the game system design. Blizzard can take covenants, soulbinds, conduits, and the legendary/torghast system and flush them down the toilet, they’re terrible and I refuse to play this expansion.

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I dont think its the expansion, its more of the direction the game is going. Instead of leveling and then playing the game to gear up through raiding etc, the game is now endless progression of different systems that you MUST do to stay competitive. You MUST pick the right covenant or you’ll suck in raids. You MUST do the maw, and torghast, and your covenant progression and your follower progression. And this is just the start of the expansion. I wonder how many they’ll add before the end of the expansion. Also, they successfully made legendaries mean less than epics. This expansion is weird.

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Draxis,

You’re spot on. BFA started with a single system and we ended up with three, and they were all terrible. I imagine SL will have at least six by the time the expansion ends.

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WoW could be the best it’s ever been, but it would require the dev team to go all in on really putting out something they’re passionate about without regard for the players it would alienate.

Not gonna see that happen, and you’re never gonna have a game that is great to everyone.

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I don’t get this part. Are you saying that people actually voicing how much they like the expansion is going to drive people away?

So everyone just needs to be on the hate train or what? If so, I fully disagree with your idea of it somehow being a bad thing if not everyone hates Shadowlands along with the haters. What kind of logic is that? You are free to bash the game but not enjoy it?

Did I misunderstand? I sure hope so. It’s late, so it’s possible.

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The player base has been more split then an entire Olympic gym team for some time now. There is no underlying theme, and it is impossible to tell what they want. The lot of them just coo coo for cocoa puffs.

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For me it’s good - but it’s not enough. I feel like the Blizzard writers are trying to stretch their legs a bit into stuff that’s a lil less funny and a lot more serious - but I feel like…they’ve had this pattern of starting projects and them abandoning them in favor of the next cool thing. Nothing’s taken to its full end, or explored in full. Like…BFA. That’s just hundreds of missed opportunities.

For Shadowlands, I was looking for an evolution. Something bombastic. And I think Blizz gave it their best shot - but it missed for me.

Bastion is amazing, in that we have this amazingly gray storyline where really, either side could be the antagonist or protagonist. It’s well written (horrifyingly so, in some cases) and I was quite invested in it.
But more out of horror and panic than in delight and interest. By making us pick a side, and may I add, the side of the abusers, they turned any shine the zone had into a leaden sludge. I lost interest from there.

So now I’m just exploring other options. Finding other games to play, going back to exploring all of my creative projects - I just want to have this be a less dominating force in my life. LIke goodness I put so much mental power into “How can they make this better? Where can this go?” Only to be continually disappointed.

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Day… 4? I feel kinda… meh so far because instead of “I can’t wait to…” it’s “Did I pick the right covenant? How long until I can finally unlock…”. I’m not counting this expac out yet but from a solo perspective I feel worn already and really regret doing the pre-paid route.

I think what really sucks is that covenants play such a HUGE role in your character that you might really wanna be a Necrolord warlock but for your spec Kyrian or Night Fae is just so much better that you’re literally gimping yourself picking anything else.

It also doesn’t help my leveling “friends” suddenly found new cliques but hey that’s life. :stuck_out_tongue:

edit: I plan to stick it out at least till Jan 15th when my sub would normally renew. If I’m still feeling like this by then… IDK maybe I’ll finally move to ESO or go back to single player RPGs.

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instead of 1-2 systems Blizz punched everyone in the face with a handful of systems and good luck keeping them up to date.

Blizz miss the mark for me.

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For me it was the monotonous linear story chain that had me really disliking the game the first few days. Once that was behind me it got a lot better and I’m actually enjoying it now.

With big quest hubs you get clear picture of when it will be done, but these linear quest chains just drag on and on and you have no visibility into when they end and it just became excruciating for me.

On top of that you have the scaling making you weaker as you progress through it so it just feels like you’re doing all this work for nothing.

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Pretty sure that would require actual devs. I’ve never seen lawyers and beancounters actually be passionate about, well, anything…except profit. And we know what gets the most profit, gacha-type mobile systems. Welcome to Actiblizzion.

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Viewer count at end of expansion that was perceived as failure vs viewer count at start of expansion where people can’t play enough.

Just think about that for a moment when you consider this metric as a measure for the game’s reception among the community. Why would I watch someone play shadowlands right now? I’d be surprised if twitch streamers playing WoW had ANY viewers right now. Do you guys like watching people game more than you like gaming? I don’t think so.

edit: I think the majority of people complaining just have a personal problem in their lives. You feeling indifferent about the game, maybe that’s a sign that you are depressed.

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OP, if that is what you come up when you’ve been “thinking about it a lot” I think you’ve hurt your brain.

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If you mean that the same players who complain about the same things every expansion will finally leave, then I have no problem with this.

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I don’t see this so many people don’t like it. It is mostly being praised, and mostly it is the ripcord people upset they did not get his or her way.

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Honestly they probably just need to get help. MMORPG as a genre is really dangerous for people who have avoidant personalities. Imagine being a longterm WoW subscriber that avoids their problems in life and takes the game they play for granted. What kind of state is their brain in? What kind of state is their body in? How much suffering makes up their life? How much of the game are they even able to enjoy, if any at all?

Everything in moderation, and don’t avoid your problems. They will manifest as much deeper problems and come to get you inevitably.

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Definitely, I can get past the linear campaign because I just had to do it once.

With how much people complained about systems in bfa, and even the endless grind of artifact weapons and legiondaries…>THIS is the expansion (FILLED with systems) they came up with to solve that?

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I personally could give a hoot about “streamers.” I’d much rather wait to participate in the game myself and gather my own opinion over those of others, as it’s legitimately the only opinion which really matters to me in the grand scheme of things … probably a bit callous, but I’m being honest. :man_shrugging:

This said … as I posted on another thread … I got to the new main city and logged out. Haven’t even hit level 51 yet and it feels odd. Nearly every expansion since 2006 has had my attention thoroughly for a minimum of a week.

This feels like BFA 2.0 to me.

Vanilla I view through rose tinted goggles from when I played it back in the day as I was a complete noob.

BC, I didn’t play too much due to funds and bouncing around.

WotLK was the pinnacle of WoW for me.

MoP, as much as I hated having to do SoO for 1.5 years had excellent class mechanics.

WoD was absolutely horrid and was the first time I actually unsubbed for the sole reason of disliking the direction of the game.

Blizzard semi-redeemed themselves with Legion, which had my attention all the way through (for the most part.)

BFA hit and my attention began to falter quickly … even though I stuck it out.

Now, we have this expansion and I’m playing classic, PoE, and anything in between to keep me entertained. It’s kind of sad.

It doesn’t mean I’ll be unsubbing or regret having bought the expansion, far from it. I’ll be one of the last people playing when the lights go off for WoW, regardless of how I feel about the game.

I’m just extremely disappointed in the direction they’re taking it and doubling down on the dumb “borrowed power” theme. It gets old.

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Here is a problem that will get people to quit faster then anything. A lot of people who are unhappy voice their complaints and then people who are oddly happy with things will jump on them aggressively. This will only make people quit the game. People can be okay being miserable for a little while playing a game, but most won’t stick around if they are miserable and being attacked for being miserable.

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