And that makes you the hero of the Shadowlands. Each zone opens up to you and has you go to another zone in search of help. Why would they play favorites after YOU were the one to find the Runeblade of Maldraxxus??? They give the sword to some rando instead?
Yeah, I noticed that on a commentary Preach made about the emissary quests not being covenant-specific. At this point I feel like Blizzard is just intentionally trolling us, and people are too obstinate to notice it.
And you pick a covenant. Again, we are at square one here.
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Agree to disagree.
Blizzard wants you to play 4 different characters.
That’s why you have so many Allied Races to choose from, it’s a great opportunity to get money from character boosts. Sounds like a great business model to me.
Or you thought “fun” is really their metric?
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That or they choose to ignore it because they don’t care and it’s more fun for them to troll people that do. Though I appreciate this kind of trolling
because it’s the kind pointing out the unintended reactions a lot of us have when seeing the terrible implementation of the Covenant story lines, soulbinds, and abilities.
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That hits the nail on the head. Choosing ends up feeling like a punishment, rather than a reward. Kinda like how artifact power was supposed to be a consistent reward, but felt like a punishment.
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I’m highly concerned after getting the October release date.
It took me 3 days, 8+ hours a day, to get from 50 to 60. Then it took me the day after that to finish all the content for my covenant that isn’t locked behind the anima grind. Nothing new pops up after that other than daily quests and the random WQs that hold no plot significance.
Even if you’re grinding anima every day, it still takes days, if not weeks to continue to advance forward to the point when you get new content.
3-4 days of “new content” before you start grinding the same quests over and over.
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Not everyone wants to make multiple alts to see the whole story so Blizz can keep their time played numbers up.
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As I have said before, once the general playerbase gets their hands on this garbage, the forums are going to light up.
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That’s why I felt I should post something in General Chat instead of leaving it in the Beta Discussion Forums. I truly believe this is really important information that is not being talked about and was somehow not mentioned at all throughout my playthrough.
Not once was I warned that the story I get invested in only plays out for the ones that choose the right covenant.
Spread the word!
Edit: Also, I still want to make it clear that I’m not asking for the covenant abilities, and special covenant transmogs/gear. I just want to finish the storyline.
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In spite of how bad the covenants are set up at a bare minimum the stories should be available for everyone to experience. Hell you might end up wanting to swap covenants after getting the whole story!
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If Blizzard makes it where I can max out a covenant, switch to another, but then switch back to my first covenant and still have all the things I left with, then I may complain less.
But right now they’re making it out like switching covenants are going very hard and annoying to do. Like they’re trying to keep you from switching after making the choice.
Edit: From the beginning creation of this game, you had the ability to increase your faction status with every available friendly faction at the same time.
Imagine if Blizzard had given you the choice between the Hydraxian Waterlords and Zandalari Trolls in Vanilla, and if you picked Hydraxian Waterlords, you weren’t allowed to increase your faction with Zandalari until you were Exalted with Waterlords.
I think they needed more practice with interconnecting stories before trying this
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Here the is thing that most people don’t understand or want to understand. Picking a Covenant is just a skill tree. You are picking a faction of the shadowlands that you represent. Why do you think Blizzard is hesitant to make them just a skill tree because its meant to be something.
The worst part is that the stories ARE interconnecting. It is one big plot.
But once you see half, you don’t see the rest unless you pick the covenant of that zone.
But they already crossed that line when they made some covenant abilities better than others.
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Choices are choices. Whats more important to you. Min/Max or story. They have never met at the middle.
We don’t get either in Shadowlands. You can’t min-max without some kind of covenant swapping or see the full story.
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Which can work
In Morrowind, you can’t do everything on one character because the joinable groups have conflicting objectives, and codes against crossing the guild. The Fighters Guild has a quest that’ll have you kill a member of the Thieves Guild, kicking you out or barring entry to it.
I’ve not seen conflicts like this for the covenants, and I don’t think the devs have learned the intricacies of doing it. They’re just forcing you to pick so that you can feel a loose sense of roleplaying.
They needed more time to set it up, or more experience crafting narratives like that. Something World of Warcraft never really had.
And even in games with conflicts like that, they rarely tie your abilities to it. You progress your character as it’s own thing, and tackle the faction’s objectives in your own way.
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