This expansion reminds me of Legend of Yeksha or Gates of Discord for Everquest; In that they were expansions in name only. Shadowlands to me I thought was going to be a big expansion. I only experienced BFA’s expansion at launch but I stopped playing then as soon as I hit 120 just because I did not feel like going further.
This time though I was determined to try the endgame. I had my lvl 50 mage all set, and when the expansion launched I had a whole week off from work to play. In about 4 days of 3-5 hours of play I was lvl 60. I wasn’t going lightening fast like some of my guildmates, but I was a bit ahead of the majority of the players. Then it came time to gear. So I ran heroics until I was ilvl 160 then went into M0 and got to 175, then started doing Normal raid where I did not get any loot, but at this point the M+ had opened and the world boss had opened. I got a drop from a world boss, a few M+ items, and my legendary. I was 190 when the vault was in it’s 2nd reset.
I looked around and saw that in order to go further I’d have to play a game that honestly wasn’t and isn’t fun. I don’t like the idea of M+ for higher levels. I don’t like the raiding scene either, I feel like I’m playing DDR with my keyboard. I did not like at the end of the game I felt like there was only 3 approved playstyles and that’s WoW retail.
Shadowlands felt small. At first I was like these places look amazing. Wow. Then I realized that with a day of play you can pretty much explore all there is to explore on a ground mount. You can essentially look around and notice that this large expansion isn’t as large as you think, quite honestly it’s the size of a small backyard. We discovered an entirely new plan of existence in the afterlife but it feels more like BFA than anything because these planes aren’t planes, they’re literally islands floating in the nether.
Couple those feelings with what the game becomes in the endgame I realized if I wanted to play a game where I’d rush through dungeons, be timed, and do it for loot I’d rather play Torchlight 2, Diablo 2, or PoE at least those are games where they don’t try and mislead you as to what they are.
For Alexander wept because he realized there are no more worlds to conquer.
This saying is how I felt. I was exploring regions in Revendreth that weren’t in the main storyline. But then I realized, eventually that region was going to be in the main storyline–it’s just timegated. Then it dawned on me that this entire world shouldn’t have been a world it feels like a glorified mid-patch update. I mean I didn’t play during Naz or Mech when they dropped but I really think that those 2 zones are literally about 25-35% in terms of scale of what Shadowlands is as it’s entirety.
Another issue was class balance. I do not think I would’ve cared as much about the size, and I’d probably would’ve been playing still had my class and spec weren’t absolute garbage for so long. Now the Frost Mage got a buff now, but I am so out-of playing at this stage I’m just like what’s the point? Let me go run harder and faster versions of the 8 dungeons, or let me run the same raid with harder keyboard-kung-fu mechanics? Why? I’m not feeling rewarded and I don’t find the value in this game.
I then decided to level an alt to get my mind off the endgame. And for about 2 weeks I was actually having fun again. I was leveling a feral druid in the Eastern Kingdoms then I went over to Kalmidor to finish in the Un’Goro Crater. I loved it. I was reading quest text, I was exploring, I felt like I was actually being rewarded for playing the game and exploring the world. Then I got to 50. I sat there and said I could re-spec to a Boomkin or Resto and play the endgame as useful classes/specs, but again I said why? There’s nothing big about those 6 areas. The Maw has so many tightly packed mobs and the music is irritating. Torghast is fun the first few times but then you realize it’s not changing and you’re not getting anything new so what’s the point. The dungeons and raids again are just coordinated keyboard dancing and to me that’s not fun–I’d rather build something, level up my skills that way, and then be rewarded for exploring.
So that’s why I found Shadowlands to be boring. Blizzard as a property has 30million MAUs according to their 2020 Q3 report. I’m guessing they probably have about 3-5 MAUs with WoW; but honestly the game rushes you to the endgame because I think that’s the only place where the game actually exists now. Everything else just feels like an empty shell as if locusts swarmed a field and now have left and the only thing that remains is a barren empty void.