My reasoning for this can be summarized in a sentence: Bad content isn’t really content. I’ll explain.
For example, think of Torghast. Torghast is despised throughout the community for some very good reasons. Most people who despise Torghast play it to get goods for the legendary, then they never touch it again. When someone looks at Shadowlands and says “Hey, there’s plenty of content and stuff to do” there really isn’t, because what content does exist isn’t fun and thus doesn’t get played. If something isn’t being played by the playerbase, it may as well not exist at all to them.
Technically speaking, many people are right that Shadowlands has more ‘content’ in that there are more things (that exist) to do in Shadowlands than there were things to do in WOD. However, what more content that is in Shadowlands isn’t fun and doesn’t get played. Hitting my foot with a hammer isn’t content for me; it technically is an option I could engage in but why would I ever subject myself to it?
WOD had an EXTREMELY limited scope of things to do, but what you could do was actually fun and engaging. The raids were fantastic and iconic to this day, PvP and the gladiator pit were fun (back when I could still play ranged survival), I’d argue the zones were prettier and the music was better as well because it felt so grounded and earthy. This isn’t to say WOD was great; the content drought was horrific. But at least it had entertainment to it, even with its narrow selection.
Shadowlands has plenty of ‘content’ for you to do, but none of it is engaging at this point. The raids, with the exception of parts of Castle Nathria, have been boring and forgettable. Torghast is Torghast. What is there for me to do? Farm enlightened broker reputation? Maw/Venari quests? Korthia/Zereth Dailies and Rares? Covenant features? The same boring (with the exception of DoS) mythic+ I’ve been doing for years? Do I even need to mention pvp’s state? There’s so much to do, but none of it is worth doing because it isn’t fun. Consequently, none of it should be considered ‘content’ because no one is doing anything with it, or only doing it because it is required and they aren’t having fun with it. Quality over quantity, peeps.
Maybe my viewpoint is biased because I’m only semi-casual as I sometimes do mythic raids. I’m sure it was a lot worse for casuals in WoD, but that’s my perspective.
Better or worse is subjective in this case. I will say WoD didn’t make me feel as tired as SL with the constant systems and unending currencies (that become irrelevant almost as fast as they are introduced).
SL is just, so convoluted it’s not really fun and I’ve been spending more time in WoD and Pandaland due to said convolution.
Also, apexis dailies. Dude. Oh, sorry- Apexis Daily (singular, one, chosen from a selection of two).
Shadowlands lore might be as bad as warlords. Maybe even worse, because wod lore can just be chucked in the alternate timeline bucket. But warlords still takes the cake with less is less.
Lorewise I’d absolutely give the edge to WoD - even if it was bad, the AU component made it 100% disposable. It didn’t have to matter, and aside from Gul’Dan (who could have been resurrected some other way), it… didn’t have to. The significant story beats that carried forward could have been handled another, less doofy comic-book way, and life would go on just fine.
WoD was bad, but not in any way that couldn’t be ignored, so it didn’t really matter.
Shadowlands… can’t be. All the awful, terrible decisions and lore “matter,” the characters are the “real” versions, and the way it’s framed, everything we’re dealing with has to be dealt with by literally everyone. WoD presented a screwed up alternative universe, while Shadowlands straight screws up ours.
Log in, heart to the garrison, grab 1k apexis daily, zoom to the shipyard, check finished missions hopefully get 2k apexis crystals, then sent the fleet to another mission. Take the portal volmar from your garrison, grab 5 apexis dailies, fly to the temple of sha’naar and make your way to the throne of kil’jaeden grabbing all the bonus quests along the way. Go back to volmar to hand in the 5 dailies and get your apexis crystals, heart to your garrison hand in the last daily. 45 minutes later, and 10k more apexis crystals richer and you’re that much closer to an awesome mount.
remember the daily dungeon and normal quest from the tavern ? those were kinda fun, it made people queue for extra things in dungeons, with a bit of tasty lore behind it. (Darion looking for soul things, Sunwalker Dezco hypnotized with a light crystal)
Coming from MoP it felt better from time to time, not having to grind hardly. On the other had if they made WoD end game areas for each zone, that progress the story, it would have been dope.
I believe if they finished that expansion with the 2 additional zones, and dungeons/raid, it would’ve been one of the greatest expansion.
The fact you could play like 4 classes up to ilv with out a weird A** grind… is a plus, no artifact power, no rng lego farm. no traits nor conduits. IT WAS GREAT
I see that Warlords of Draenor is still easiest expansion for World of Warcraft as seeing to my progress:
My Human Warlock and Goblin Mage are came to alternate Draenor and Garrison campaigns, meanwhile in cases of Gnome Warlock and Blood Elf Warlock (and their successors) have completed half of Legion storyline only missing is Legionfall and some others, however other characters like in Draenei Paladin and Tauren Priest (or Human and Undead Priests) are going to Cataclysm, the rest of it still unknown especially Blood Elf Mage.
Much like The Burning Crusade, the Shadowlands have been too much behind The Jailer, as I ever know it.
Posting from my main because I’m not a coward: I could have taken a crap , thrown it on a storyboard and whatever camr out would have been a better expansion.
Time gsting makes content feel bad. All the systems do not feel good and make the grind feel awful. Shards of domination killed an entire season. Nothing has STILL been done about the 20 man raid requirement. We only had eight dungeons. The affixes are terrible. Class balance is in the gutter. All in all this expansion is one of the worst expansions to any video game ever.
They wanted to make Torghast the equivalent of Horrific Visions. But by the time it got through all the committee meetings, it had been turned into a currency dispenser like Island Expeditions. There’s a lot of content now that is nothing but a currency dispenser. They even turned random bgs into a currency dispenser where elite players could farm honor to upgrade their gear. Casuals are supposed to keep queuing for the role of random mobs to be farmed.
I’m a casual. I had crazy fun in Ashran. I would play on a wod PvP server.
