Shadowlands is Almost Upon Us

Wyrmrest Accord
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So… have you decided on anything? Are you ready for the expansion, or do you still have a lot you want to do? What covenant will you be going? Will your RP have anything to do with the Shadowlands proper? Are you even going to sub/buy the expansion?

Tell me the deets plz.

For the sake of participating in my own thread, I don’t see myself getting involved with the Shadowlands realms proper ICly, but I guess that’s subject to change depending on my guild. I personally don’t intend to do it, anyways.

Planning to go with Maldraxxus for my covenant because it’s good for PvP and M+ and I’d rather be subpar in a raid setting than be a knock off human paladin aesthetic with Kyrian.

For now though, I am planning to spam island expedition to try and farm the stupid green parrot mount since I didn’t get any good results from trying to farm Freehold since my return. Alas.

But yes, what is the expansion looking like for you?

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I sat out large swaths of BfA content and just didn’t see the purpose in rushing to play catch up, so I’m done for all intents and purposes.

Going Revendreth on Ryka and my Alliance lock, but eventually I’d like to get at least one toon in each covenant.

I was hesitant at first about the idea of trying to RP in SL when I first heard about it. But the more I learned about Revendreth the more it kinda works for Ryka. She was a Sylvanas loyalist up until the whole ‘ripping open a giant gaping hole in the sky’ thing, so the concept of a place where you’re forced to repent for your sins gives me a way to resolve her storyline that doesn’t result in her being a bitter exile (or going against her incredibly stubborn nature and admitting she was wrong right off the bat).

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Going to play Shadowlands at least, only characters I have that I see going in IC are the deathknights.

I have enough characters that I’ll have someone from every armor class going through every covenant, in case they unlock covenant transmog restrictions down the line some time. Kenixx will be first and will probably go Maldraxxus, because none of the aesthetics and thematics really match anyways, and after a couple years of having zero cleave I will overindulge. Second main-ish character is a troll druid, gonna go through Ardenweld because that where all his loa peeps are.

I’ve given up on the bag after several dozen attempts so I guess I’m ready as I’ll ever be.

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I have decided on a transmog set. For today.

I think I’m ready. I’d kinda like it to be a week later, when my holiday break starts… but hey, it is what it is lmao! It’s been a long while without content to respond to in RP, and to participate in as a breath of fresh air. I’m looking forward to it.

I was leaning towards Kyrian at first, until I heard about their “forgetting the past” part of their ethos. Sarestha’s entire adult life and unlife have more or less been dedicated to service to Lordaeron, and her people… so I thought it might be a good fit. But remembering the past is a massively important thing for her. It’s all about identity. Who you are. The things that MADE you who you are. Without that… what’s even the point?

With that in mind, I’m leaning towards Necrolords. It definitely fits the Death Knight side of things well. And Sarestha will absolutely FANGIRL about working with Alexandros Mograine. He’s a personal hero of hers :stuck_out_tongue:

That said her covenant membership will likely be OOC. I can’t see Sarestha pledging herself to any one organisation. She’s already Horde, Forsaken and Ebon Blade. She doesn’t need more allegiances. What if they all start making her pay membership fees? She’ll be broke!

My reasons for joining the covenants are going to be nonetheless entirely thematic though. Even though questing/so forth isn’t IC for my characters… I like to do it in a way that fits how they’d think/act. I have more fun that way. So I’ll put her in a covenant that works for her. The abilities don’t really matter to me as much - they’re all viable enough for a casual like me.

Ideally, yes. For story reasons. Sarestha feels immense guilt over Sylvanas Windrunner. She saw Sylvanas as more than a Queen - she saw her as some sort of saviour, a visionary who saw the undead as people, not as mindless slaves, and set them free. A slightly flawed world view, but one she held tightly to nonetheless.

Very long story short, Sylvanas’ attempted public mind control of Derek Proudmoore hit Sarestha hard. Sarestha followed Sylvanas through all the rest of it, even Teldrassil, trusting her Queen unfailingly… but Free Will was the cornerstone of Sarestha’s loyalty. With that brick pulled away, the entire structure came tumbling down.

Anyway Lordaeron Unbound was founded with the intent of preventing someone like Sylvanas from ever gaining power again. To protect and serve the people of Lordaeron. But… their Queen just unleashed the SCOURGE. The WORST incarnation of mindless undead hordes in history. Sarestha feels personally responsible in that she served and trusted Sylvanas for so long, and she is damn well going to try to make things right… and prevent another Scourge from rising again.

With that in mind, Highlord Sarestha Ravelle will most certainly be leading the Order of Lordaeron Unbound beyond the veil… whatever might await!

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I had things I wanted to do, but no IRL time to do them. I’m as set as I’m going to be at this point.

I finally sat down last night and decided to go with Night Fae as a covenant. Outwardly Norman plays the part of typical Gnome-intergalactic-space-engineer, but he’s always wanted to be a druid. (long story) If Blizz ever gives Gnomes the druid class, Norman will be changing classes.

For my play style (worst rogue NA), it seems the DPS tricks from NF will hold their own enough and since I’m a simple guy, more importantly NF have backpacks, cool belts and the only mount that I have even a slight interest in obtaining - Wildseed Cradle. I think this might be the first expac that I have literally zero interest in any of the new mounts.

So in the end for me, once again it just comes down to who has the neat stuff.

I’ll see how it plays out. Norman would not normally want anything to do with any of this death business, but I’m open to seeing how it rolls.

More than likely it will play out like every other expansion - I start off with grand plans of doing this or obtaining that and in the end, IRL takes over. I’ll probably get through 60% of what I want and then go back to previous expansions and complete more ‘want lists’ from days gone by.

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I still can’t decide on a main. I’m torn between Shaman, Priest, and Monk. I will probably play all of them at some point, and maybe main 2 of them to start and see how easy that is to manage (Preach and others have said its more alt-friendly than even Legion, let alone BfA.) But which one do I play first?! Arrrggh.

Thuum, my Draenei Shaman, will be going Maldraxxus. Strength above all. The cosmos is a cold and cruel place and only those with power have the ability to resist it and protect those who are unable to protect themselves.

Sveyn, my Human Priest, is gonna be Revendreth. He’s got a shady past that he is trying to repent from, so doing that, and helping others do that, will appeal to him. And he’s just edgy enough to fit in.

Dragonfist, my Human Monk, is going Kyrian. Another character with a dark past trying to turn over a new leaf (it’s a trope I like and use a lot lol), he’s a very duty-bound individual, and while I don’t plan for him to drink the Kool-Aid fully and forget his life, he is someone who suffers from a lot of guilt and so wouldn’t find such a concept abhorrent in and of itself. As a Monk, he probably has a pseudo-Buddhist concept of detachment from emotions, doubt, etc., that also makes the whole concept jive with him well.

Reading this, one might think I don’t like Ardenweald. I do, I really love it, it might be my favourite covenant. But I just don’t have a strong urge to play any specs that are really good in Night Fae. I’m not a min-maxer by any stretch, but I’m enough of one that it has to jive at least somewhat… I MAY move the Monk to Night Fae, but I can’t shake the feeling that Soulshape feels a little wasted on high mobility classes…

Eventually, I’m sure I will do each Covenant multiple times by the time we are in 9.3, so I’m not stressing too hard about Covenant choice or not having a Night Fae character right away.

I plan to RP in the Shadowlands on my main characters. I like to take part in the story to some degree. I’m sure I will think about it as I am leveling through (or find a guild) to decide what exactly my characters are doing. For example, during BfA, I fell in love with the Order of Embers and realized my Paladin would have showed up to join as soon as it formed. So I’m sure a cool subzone or questline will grab my attention and I’ll know “that’s what this character is doing.”

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I was going to continue to sit out but COVID-19 drastically changed my plans. We live in a state that’s not really taking it seriously but our employer is so we’ve been work from home since I came back from parental leave. Add to that we keep our daughter home because all the daycares seem to be on a rotating spot in the news for having outbreaks to the point that my work/life/play balance has all kind of gelled together.

So here we are again in Azeroth about to go out of Azeroth and I can’t say I’m excited but the game is a fantastic way of lining up short things to do during the day and engaged things to do at night and since my WFH assignment has switched to July 1st with a sort of knowing wink at “but probably forever” I guess WoW and I are united for a bit longer. Plus I still have a lot of friends and fun folks to talk to which makes the just-our-family 24/7 isolation a lot easier - my baby and my spouse don’t appreciate my roasts quite like guild chat or Discord do.

In character, I wish I wasn’t all of my characters, I wish they were different people - not because I’m lonely or want a major group or anything but so they could all interact. My Death Knight and my Priest are uncle and niece never to meet outside of writing prompts, my Hunter reports to my Paladin but never in formation, my “reformed” privateer Tidesage Shaman would get along famously with my Rogue. Rather than everyone being able to presume if you see “Hammer of Dawn” over a human or Kul Tiran loitering in Stormwind and whisper “Hi Opherial” you’d be right like the world’s least engaged edition of Where’s Waldo.

Canonically, since the trek into the Shadowlands doesn’t seem nearly as “personal” or “The Chosen One” as we thought, Opherial and Garrovihn will be going in for duty’s sake, for life and legion.

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ill continue working on shadow of conquest, and when it’s done, ill probably stop playing the game

start writing a little thing that’s the Ashbringer fanfic I’ve got planned, which will basically be completely original outside of the setting it’s based in

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Going to be rolling the hunter like always. Its been my main since Wrath (over 10 years of hunter maining, wow I’m a loser) and with SL shaping up to let me once again enjoy MM (SV used to belong here, but alas for the rework) I’m here for the sniping fun. Backups include my arms warrior and brewmaster monk.

I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for the next expansion. Those three characters are are over 110 ilvl, with the hunter sitting at 128-130. I don’t stockpile gold, so getting the brutosaur was never an option, and mythic N’zoth is outta my reach.

I’m still leaning towards Kyrian as my covenant for the hunter, which is unfortunate since my hunter is also undead but out of everything I can’t deny the Hanzo arrow. I plan on some rated PvP for the first time since Wrath as well, so the advantage goes there but we’ll have to see. The others I’ll just go whatever fits them best.

RP I haven’t done since WoD, but I always keep a bit of RP for my characters in mind. The hunter is a 2nd gen dark ranger, so going after Sylvanas and stopping her plans would be a very IC move for him. Everyone else I don’t know but am leaning towards no.

Overall, looking forward to having fun this expanion in terms of PvE/PvP, and if there’s some chance of RP I’ll take it. Since I moved the hunter to ED, it’ll only be if I get phased to WrA more than likely.

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This will be the first time since I came back during MoP that I’ll be swapping mains, at least temporarily. Even though I barely played since I got AotC, frustration with shaman as a class combined with stuff that’s happened to Ursuola in RP make it so that she’s better off being stuck on Azeroth for a tier or two.

We’ll see how long I can get away with playing a pure DPS class, though.

By pure circumstance, I have by complete accident gotten that Monday and the Tuesday after off in the middle of Thanksgiving week, so I’m just about as prepared as I’m going to get at this point.

https://youtu.be/Ykxcdp6-2kE?t=19

I think that, despite the best efforts of a lot of people, it’s a fundamentally futile exercise to try to never-ever-under-any-circumstance RP the storyline of an expansion, if you intend to ever RP outside of a small group of like-minded friends. So I guess my RP will have to do with the Shadowlands out of necessity.

Which is to say, catch me in my goth mansion in three weeks, ordering my manservant Igor to bring me another glass of “”"“wine”"""

I’ll probably end up being subbed for the whole thing unless my entire group decides to move elsewhere, but I’m mentally prepared for the fact that, if major flaws in Shadowlands’ design show themselves in the first three or four weeks, the entire expansion is probably a wash.

That sounds like it shouldn’t be a thing, given that expansions operate on a timeline of real-life years, but history has proven that to be basically accurate.

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I’m excited, I’ve been so bored and done with BFA since it’s release, at.east if I get done with stuff on my main there’s different stuff to do on lays in different covenants. I plan on taking each toon into a covenant that suits their Transmog needs, and for the time being only one of them will be there ICly, which happens to be my rogue.

The rogue will go Venthyr for blade cloak and being a little pain in the butt to everyone in the past decade of her life. My Hunter goes Nightfae, Shaodw priest to Kyrian, and Mage to the Necro lords. I’ll kinda be doing a little bit of everything except raid unless my guild decides to. I’m more under the, everything will get nerfed and buffed throughout the expansion mindset, so I don’t see the point in going to the covenant for power, especially on alts.

Right now I’m just doing pet battles for achievement points and get my tour of the wyrm booty stocked. Just don’t tell my GM.

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I’m absolutely excited for Shadowlands, and I’m absolutely going Venthyr (because if your choice includes super edgy gothic vampire bitey bois, is it really a choice you have to think about?).

I don’t have anything left to do in BFA and the expansion release is long-awaited. I finished season 4 keystone master, got AOTC, got my vicious mount for the season and rated PvP transmog, got all of the achievements to get from 8.3 (like 5 mask clears, etc.). For the past couple of months, I’ve just been in this holding pattern where I’ve been leveling characters and trying to decide on who my first alt will be (and I’ve settled on my Forsaken Hunter who will be going Maldraxxus, because the runner up to super edgy gothic vampire bitey bois is anything that reminds me of the Scourge).

I’m excited for all the zones, which look wonderfully high-concept and remind me yet again that WoW’s art team deserves all the praise and more for their consistently stellar work. I’m also excited for the alt-friendliness in covenant progression and choices. I know that given the fact that there are four covenant campaigns, I will be extremely interested in playing at least four alts, one through each covenant, just to see their stories and how it all pans out. This very much reminds me of how the Legion order halls incentivized people to level each class through the content to see the unique order hall story (some of which were very good—looking at you, Death Knight).

ICly, Maerlyn is definitely going to the Shadowlands with his apothecaries to uncover and bring back whatever he can to increase his (and the Forsaken’s) power. It’s not clear yet what form that will take—I’m sure I’ll have a much better idea of how to go about it once I’ve had a chance to level through all of the zone storylines and explore them a good bit—but what I do know is that even when expansions center around something extremely fantastical (such as journeying to the literal afterlife), it’s always more fun to find a way to join in with the story in real time. To me, anyway.

Lately I’ve been trying to loosen my stodginess about what is “sensible” and grounded in RP and just enjoy all of the “out there” elements of Warcraft as they intermingle with the more “normal” ones. Today, Maerlyn is sifting through budget and research paperwork in his office in Vengeance Landing; tomorrow, he’s stepping through a portal to the realms of death.

All in a day’s work.

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I’m done with the event – got bags for all 4 characters I’m taking to SL, all 4 armor sets, and the pet. Now I’m in a weird limbo because I don’t want to get into another game for such a short time.

Nala will be going to Ardenweald, but I don’t plan on changing her transmog because there aren’t any red options there. I have remained completely spoiler-free, so I have no idea what those covenant abilities are, and honestly, I don’t care how powerful or weak they are.

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Although I like Ardenweald the most thematically I think I’m going Kyrian because their mogs look best for a draenei warrior… tree man just isn’t what I want.

I’ve done very little rp since wod but I kinda wanna get back into it, so um if any guilds want a rusty lapsed rper lemme know.

Overall I’m going into shadowlands blinder than usual since it is the first beta I wasnt invited to in a while. Other than the broadest brushstrokes I don’t know what to expect. Hopefully it will be fun? I still dont really understand how covenants are the headlining feature since they just seem like class halls with essences that are hard to change, but maybe there is more content to them than I understand.

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I came into BfA late and never really got into it. So I’m as ready as I can be to move on. There are a few things I would have like to have done, but I don’t really care enough to do them.

So far, I’ve gotten 3 characters ready to go and I’m leveling a potential 4th. Kina will still be my main, as she has been since before wrath. And she will be going ICly. She feels that she needs to do her part in helping bring down Sylvanas. She can’t be allowed to get away with all the crap she’s done. So Kina will be headed out to hopefully be part of the Banshee’s demise.

Since I am a filthy casual, BiS really doesn’t matter to me. I don’t play well enough for it to make a damn bit of difference, so I’ll be selecting which of the covenants I like and I think fits the character. Kina is very Taureny about nature, the elements and ancestors, so Night Fae it is. My druid will probably follow her. Third character… I don’t know, but I’m leaning vampire. Time will tell.

And being currently unemployed, I have the time to play.

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This is the first expansion where I just haven’t had the same level of excitement I usually have. BFA left a really bad taste in my mouth and I’m feeling meh going into Shadowlands. I’m keeping an open mind and hoping for the best. I definitely plan on going Venthyr, they seem really interesting. Wouldn’t be opposed to them as an Allied Race in the future.

As for RP, I just don’t see myself doing anything in the Shadowlands itself with any of my characters. Only way any of my characters would go is if my guild does. Only time will tell! Here’s hoping Shadowlands is a step up from BFA.

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This is the first expansion in a long while where I’ve been tempted not to play Chonga first since I’ve been having fun getting all the classes up to max here at the home stretch. I’m almost tempted to play Warrior Fraggle or PallyTroll Sejen at launch just to mix things up. Also, I’m basically ignoring what covenant is best for whatever reason and just going with story and aesthetics. Chonga is going to Maldraxxus because I like the cloth set and I don’t care if another covenant is better for whatever content cause let’s be honest here if Cyberpunk comes out on the 10th I’m going to probably be playing that for the rest of the month.

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I was stuck for the longest time between druid and shaman. Since druid is looking better all-around for every aspect of the game, I went druid.

I’ll be going Necrolord for the covenant abilities and the lore deets. Sarrass is more of a warrior spirit anyways.

My shaman will be my main alt, though I haven’t quite decided on a covenant.

Shadowlands is kind of the last hurrah for me, so I’m going all out. If Blizzard continues its trend of overbearing and overcomplex systems piling on each other, I’m done for good. If they actually make a decent expansion out of Shadowlands, I’ll stick around.

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I’ve more or less accepted that PvP and M+ will be my “main focus” of content but in truth I am going to devote myself to RP primarily and just see how it feels. I might dabble with other content like Raiding but chances are nah, just don’t have the time or the will to work with such a large group of strangers in a competitive/co-op setting.

I’d rather work with a group of strangers who are also pretending to be werewolves and trying to get back their homeland.

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On the topic of overbearing systems does any part of this headline sound fun to you guys

I do wanna go into Shadowlands with an open mind and all but why do they always spend so much effort developing these byzantine progression systems that nobody really likes

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