The Vocal Minority

Community General Discussion
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These forums seem like there’s a lot of negative reviews of Shadowlands, so much so that you’d think this was the end for Warcraft, and that Blizzard is finished.

However, I believe whats representative on this forum is actually the minority that happens to be incredibly vocal.

I decided to check the overall reception of this expansion to see if my hypothesis was correct.

References Cited below.

  1. Metacritic: Score: 82%
  2. IGN: Score: 8/10
  3. PC Gamer: Score: 80%
  4. Game Informer: Score: 8.75

IGN had this to say on the Expansion

" The 10 levels you’ll spend getting to know the Shadowlands definitely live up to the standard of quality I expect from Blizzard in terms of zone design, music, and affecting character moments. And at max level, this is probably the most compelling World of Warcraft’s beckoning call to stick around has ever been, mainly because of Torghast and the chances it presents you to craft your own legendary items. But the fact remains that max-level play is designed to keep you around as long as possible with a limited amount of drip-fed story and repetitive daily and weekly activities, even if Shadowlands has more of them, and they’re more fun, than any previous expansion. Don’t get me wrong: this one ranks highly in the pantheon, up there with Legion and Wrath of the Lich King, partly because it makes some honest and substantial attempts to reinvent the tired endgame formula. I’m just still not sure if it goes far enough to hold my interest, and subscription dollars, in between the meatier story drops in major patches."

PC Gamer had this to say:
"Torghast is such an amazing addition to WoW, but there are times where I can’t escape the feeling that I’ve run this marathon before. I love that Blizzard swings big on its expansions where other MMOs are happy to stick to a template, but it also makes everything feel inconsequential. I can bust my rear grinding my Covenant, but a player who starts playing a month from now will catch up to me with minimal effort. When a major update comes out, the goal posts will be moved back and all that hard-earned gear will be worthless trash compared to whatever new stuff is available. It’s hard to see the value in investing tons of time into the game when everything is so fleeting.

Fortunately, unlike Battle for Azeroth, a lot of Shadowlands’ new features are inherently fun enough that I want to keep playing even if I’m concerned about the bigger picture. The four new zones are dense with surprises and treasures, Covenants are an exciting way to customize my character, and I’m enjoying the more subtle storytelling and worldbuilding now that the main campaign is over with."

Game Informer broke it out into categories:

CONCEPT:
Save the world by entering various realms in the afterlife, meeting old friends and enemies along the way

GRAPHICS
Breathtaking and striking environments make it hard to imagine that the game is 16 years old

SOUND
The core sounds of World of Warcraft haven’t changed much, but there are always unit barks and meme-worthy boss quips to enjoy

PLAYABILITY
A revamped and customizable levelling process makes Shadowlands a great time for new or returning players to join in

ENTERTAINMENT
Shadowlands adds some daring elements into the mix while also retaining many of the same hooks that have kept the MMO going over the years

REPLAY
High

It seems like the game was an overall success showing that the blatant rage posts found here is a vocal minority. It would seem Blizzard got it right with this expansion according to the industry. I would suspect that goinng forward Blizzard will continue to make content utilizing and building what it has done in Shadowlands.

My personal opinion, WoW is WoW… it is what it is, love it or hate it.

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Lol IGN.

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the forum is usually alot less than 5% of the player base, all of us on here are the vocal minority… including yourself.

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Tldr but I agree with you. Shadowlands isn’t as horrible as they all say.

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Agreed there.

I just wasn’t sure so i did some research into the reception of the expansion overall

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The problem is, especially with the game informer article, this perspective of “new and exciting” wears off quickly. These are snapshots of new content, not content as it will be soon.

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I’m just gonna say this…

Those same sites you reference has made some crappy reviews on some amazing games. Just because they gave a game a good score doesn’t mean it’s not bad. Same thing if it was reversed.

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All of that are trailing indicators. It will be interesting to see sub rates after December and January, which is exactly why they don’t publish sub rates.

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FYI BfA had about the same overall critic score. IGN also gave it a 8/10 and game informer gave it a 88.

Since the user score is 5.9 it would seem more then just those on the forums.

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I partly agree with this, although i believe the GD folks consider you a troll and this is literally a copy/paste from another post…

However there are major tuning issues within both the raid and torghast.

However i believe this is expected when you create borrowed power systems and then have to design end game content for so many classes, and then 4 different borrowed power trees.

It still needs to be addressed overall

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I generally enjoy the expansion. not everything but mostly.

When i posted that sentiment was called a liar by a troll and accused of other nonsense like that by random 10 year olds.

At this point i see no need to post anything but silliness in these forums.

Anything else will get marked as trolling or spam because of the stupid blizzard design of allowing people to flag things as troll for topics they dont agree with

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I believe that will be the true indication. I wonder what subs will look like by mid Feb.

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This is true for most social platforms, and forms of social media. Those happy with the game most likely are, ya know…playing the game.

People are more likely to speak up when they don’t like something.

But most people are just going about their business. Taking any online forum or platform as an indication of society as a whole is a gross misinterpretation. And a lot of people fall prey to it.

I just look at the forums when I have nothing else to do.

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As I mentioned Game Informer gave Battle for Azeroth a better score then Shadowlands.

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Flagging is an annoyance agreed, but as long as you don’t violate the rules it gets lifted in 24-48 hours.

However there needs to be some retribution to people who do this on the forums as it is a legitament issue.

And lastly, sorry that happened to you, but in all likelihood those folks are a lot older than 10, and are responding either as an attempt to troll you, or have no idea how to create a rational debate.

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Havent we learned by now that critic reviews are largely a pay to play game? Shadowlands has a 5.9 user review. Not so hot, and frankly this expansion is turning out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing - the closer you get, the more time you spend playing, the more glaring the issues become.

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Have critic outlets given any expansion a score lower than an 8?

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they’re not going to when the developer is paying the bill

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There are legit concerns with Shadowlands in terms of tuning for certain parts of it.

That so far is my only real issue with the game.

You are either OP or hopelessly out matched.

Torghast, while completely enjoyable to me, is almost unplayable on certain classes / specs.

As a Blood DK, this isn’t an issue for me, but since the world doesn’t revolve around me… I have thrown in my voice with those calling for tuning.

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User reviews are also susceptible to review-bombing.

Its hard to find something that is free of bias.

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