I’ll give you that, charisma isn’t exactly Ion’s best stat. He was a litigation attorney, so that should come as a surprise to nobody.
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But to give Ion credit, I think he’s a good Raid dev. Raids have always been one of WoW’s strongest points. But it’s like putting the head cafeteria chef of the hospital in charge of the entire hospital.
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Right, this is how I always felt about the decision. Legion had Chilton and Afriasiabi and their departure shows. It really, really shows.
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Yeah I agree there are waaay to many different currencies in shadowlands. To be quite honest I’m not entirely sure what a couple of them do or how to get more. So far it hasn’t impacted to not have it or know more so I haven’t bothered to look. Heh.
That is bad.
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Maybe give it a few weeks when more content is fully revealed? I mean, we’re only in Day 4.
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Farewell friend! I on the other hand can’t wait to run circles around Korthia and click on invasive mushrooms for hours.
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I’m about there too, partner. Covenants are a worse way of going about borrowed power. In fact it should be the alpha, Mark I design level of doing borrowed power. BFA’s borrowed power was way better. And Legion’s was perfect.
They are just shoehorning borrowed power because they saw it did well for them in Legion - but that’s the thing…we had amazing artifact weapons paired with the borrowed power. There is nothing amazing about azerite gear nor Covenants.
Count me out.
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You said this better than I possibly could have. Artifacts made us feel cool. Powerful. Unique. Class Halls gave us continued meaning behind the class(es) we play. I really thought Legion would be the return of WoW for a while. Dalaran is a beautiful and vibrant city that lifts your spirits, the zones were diversified. The maw is… well it’s the maw. Oribos is a depressing spaceship run by robot ghosts.
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I honestly want them to release Legion classic after WotLK Classic - personally could do with out Cata-WoD (even tho I liked WoD alot).
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I was definitely one of those people who genuinely enjoyed Garrisons. At the very least it felt fresh. Nothing about Shadowlands strikes me as fresh aside from some beautiful art and ambient music.
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I simply don’t have the hours in the day to unlock that content. I cannot farm renown enough to do the Chains campaign within a reasonable amount of time. At one point questing was the most casual aspects of WoW, now it’s perhaps the grindiest.
Pinky swear
Thank you Axaron for your candid feedback, I feel exactly the same. This version of wow is nowhere near the quality game I once adored - its very disappointing. I feel the design efforts the past three expansions were mostly focus on raids - both full raids and mini-raids (M+) - with all other aspects of the game phoned-in just to make an appearance. I came back because I wanted to finish out the expansion and earn flying. I don’t intend to fall for it again unless there’s some serious changes in the design department.
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See ya. 
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I hated so much of the game in early BFA. I quit after clearing the first raid cause the gearing system was just too much. Came back to SL, so I know how it feels
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How are you feeling about 9.1? Are you compelled to stay for a while, or are you having similar feelings as I describe in OP?
personally Im just playing old content for the most part.
finding TONS of old mogs I still dont have.
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Here’s the thing. I didn’t really enjoy bfa and complained about it a bit. I didn’t care for the expansion so I resented stuff like pathfinder for forcing me to play it. In hindsight I just didn’t want to be there for most of it.
Sorry you feel like this about this expansion. The difference for me is that now that they have tweaked choreghast and what not I do like this expansion. I like most of the factions (but only night fae covenant), so I don’t mind grind for reps I’d like to rep with rewards I actually want.
Are things perfect? No. To me it’s the obverse of how I felt in bfa though, I want to see this through and I want to be here. With that attitude not much seems that bad but right now my classic character is suffering because I really want those next retail rewards.
I came in to 9.0 on two random alts but neither took, so the expansion is still somewhat fresh to me having done diddly for all of 9.0. Classic remains a draw but while it is to be appreciated it is also slow and requires more socialization.
I enjoy both but prior to 9.1 I’d have said I was just here for classic and now the roles are reversed, I struggle to keep up with classic friends but have been no lifeing retail like it’s my job for that sweet catchup, rewards and upgradable gear that doesn’t just look good.
If this is a bad time for wow then bring on the good times and I’ll never leave the house 
.
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Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think if I had just begun Shadowlands I would absolutely be having a good time. The questing game was great, the art direction and sound design are phenomenal. What I think lost it’s magic is the post 60 game, and not for everyone, obviously! I just feel more limited than ever in the things I can do. Flying is the least of it, I just miss being able to advance the plot without hours upon hours of daily play.
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Okay. Short answer: Time gating goes hand-in-hand with easier game difficulties, because a population has sprung up that only does the game on the easiest version, and then doesn’t want to do anything after that, so because the gameplay duration isn’t being extended through gameplay challenge, Blizzard artificially extends it through hard time-gates.
Let’s look at a few archetypal player categories, just to put things in perspective. I’m going to leave PvP out of this because I don’t claim to be an expert on current PvP systems.
- The high-end Mythic player is focused on the hardest stuff in the game, and does Cutting Edge raiding every tier and/or does really high keys (let’s say 20+). These players will start out doing something that is easy for them (like the Heroic raid, or KSM), but once they reach that goal, they keep pushing into harder and harder gameplay.
^ This type of player doesn’t need any time-gating to keep Blizzard happy, because once something is overcome, they’re going to move on to the next challenge.
- The Heroic/early Mythic player is going to start off working through the Heroic raid, and pressing towards KSM. This is going to take some time, for them, probably a few months. Once they reach their goal, they keep going from there, either moving into the Mythic raid or continuing to push for higher keys. They’re not going to reach the levels of the first group, but they’ll keep pushing as far as they can.
^ No time-gating is needed here, either, to keep Blizzard happy.
- The low-time/higher-skill Heroic player is perfectly capable of moving into higher Mythic, but paces themselves so that their goals (which are, let’s say, AOTC and KSM) are going to take a while. They’ll reach the end and then just chill until the next content patch, but that usually involves preparation for the next tier, so they’re not going anywhere.
^ No time-gating needed, here.
- Some of the Normal-level players are going to restrict themselves to easier stuff, like the Normal raid, Mythic dungeons (but not M+), and questing/story content. Once they finish Normal, they stop. Once they do the Mythic-0 dungeons, they stop. Once they finish the covenant campaign (and get their renown gear), they stop.
^ This is a problem for Blizzard in many ways.
First of all, the players start screaming that they’re bored and demand that Blizzard rush out the next content patch - regardless of the fact that the first 3 groups are still working their way through it. Second, although there’s plenty of things for these players to DO, they just won’t do any of it. Which is frustrating for Blizzard because they’ve made 6-12 months of stuff to do, but these players won’t do any of it after a short time.
These are what Blizzard calls “cyclical” players, people who resub for a couple months, do whatever on the easiest difficultly, and then quit again. Until the next patch, when they’ll resub for a month or two, again.
It’s difficult for Blizzard to keep these players engaged. They can’t keep churning out a constant feed of low-density stuff to do that’s designed only to occupy people for a few hours, that’s just not how the game is designed. That’s more of a mobile game formula.
For most of the playerbase, the solution is to add harder difficulties. But if people refuse to do the harder difficulties, what’s Blizzard going to do?
The answer is to slow things down by limiting the speed. If people are going to stick to the easiest and fastest way of doing things, Blizzard is just going to have to slam the breaks on that every week to keep them around.
We’ve seen over and over again this behavior where, even with the breaks, the moment that the 4th group finishes the easiest version, they start demanding more. (For example, it always happens after the last wing of LFR releases, and we also saw it on full display once people got their covenant gear this expansion.)
The side effect is that the brakes (time-gating) also affect the first 3 groups. However, it seems most of them don’t really seem to mind, since they’re busy with other things in the game and don’t particularly feel a need to “finish”.
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