New classes do not make an expansion good. Good expansions have had new classes, but the two are not inexorably linked.
Shadowlands could indeed turn out to be WoD 2, but I’m not making that bet yet simply because with WoD, the playerbase was not engaged with anywhere near as early in the dev process as it has been for Shadowlands. The dev team so far doesn’t seem like it’s being rushed, with there being plenty of time to test and tweak things. It all feels very different from how things did at this point in MoP, when we had practically no insight into what WoD was going to be like at all.
I’m extremely hyped and ready for Shadowlands. I’m into everything. The transmog. Torghast. The zones. The Covenants. Everything. I love the class changes. I love the profession changes.
There isn’t much I don’t love about Shadowlands.
With this said I honestly have to admit something. You do bring up a really good point.
This could very well end up being another WoD sadly. It just has the chance. Cosmetic appearances and changes aside, it could end up ending badly with some of the new content and lack in some other areas. Like no transmog class sets, no new class or race at launch, not having flying etc.
One thing that’s encouraging is that they’ve said that they’re willing to pull the plug on things like Covenants if they turn out to not work well in the alpha/beta, which makes me think they’re watching the overall reception of the expansion more closely and are prepared to make dramatic moves if necessary to keep the game afloat. Wouldn’t be too surprising if it’s now their policy to have contingency plans ready to go at all times now that they’ve had to bail on an expansion early twice.
Ion Hazzikostas said in that Twitch interview that they’re going to scrap the whole Covenant ability restriction if they can’t save it. He said he wants to see a conversation about fixing the system rather than getting rid of it.
I’d like to suggest one thing IMO about that system.
Take the 4 universal covenant abilities. Make each one themed around each covenant and let players pick which one they want.When it comes to every classes plethora of Covenant options. Each Class having 4 abilities from each covenant, they should make all them be themed around each faction as well. It gets a bit confusing there because there are 12 classes in the game and 4 covenant specific abilities for each class.
That’s 48 current abilities that Blizzard just spend time balancing and working on.
Forgive my math capability off the top of my head but it’d be 3 times 48 for how many extra abilities Blizzard would need to make. 3 being that currently the 48 represent a theme already so that’s 1/4th the work.
If those who work with modeling and effects can change the themes of these 48 abilities by adding 144 different color variations and effects, including the 4 current themed universal abilities by making 12 new ones, than I see a compromise.
Players get to pick their covenants and get to work with the abilities that Blizzard made.
Totally agree, wanting to balance covenant abilities is very ambitious, ngl, but i can get behind them wanting to do their best to balance it, not gonna scream or make a rant while they do this, as long as they keep their word that if the balancing fails, they are gonna switch the swappable covenant abilities button on.
It was on the Twitter I believe. I don’t remember where, but I recall them saying they were going to try something else. I don’t put much stock into it because clearly Voidform is some Dev’s baby, but one can hope. I mean they drove Warlock players completely insane for 2 expansions because the Mage lead had a tiff with Xelnath after all if what was posted on MMO-C was accurate.
