World of Warcraft has been here for a very long time and even though it’s an old MMORPG, it still manages to survive and lure in thousands of players. Being a great example for many other MMORPGs doesn’t come with a flawless product. World of Warcraft has had its ups and downs, just like any other game but it’s important to learn from your mistakes, move on, and adapt or create something better. Battle For Azeroth wasn’t the expansion that we wanted so Blizzard needed to create a much better expansion which is Shadowlands.
Shadowlands is trying to be the expansion that’s been build by the community. Blizzard promised to listen more closely to the community’s desires and takes everything into account that’ll allow them to create a great expansion. Until now, it truly seems that Blizzard has listened and it shows when you compare the sales from Shadowlands with Battle for Azeroth. Shadowlands is the best selling expansion to date. It seems that the eighth expansion might be a turning point for this old but sturdy game.
“Shadowlands is set in the land between the living and the dead.”
Shadowlands is set in the land between the living and the dead. Our horde queen manages to blow off the Lich King and open a portal to the Shadowlands. As a champion of the alliance, you’ll be able to cross this border and try to restore the balance of these unfortunate events because the world is shaken. Shadowlands offers different realms with their own aesthetics and vibe. Bastion is a kingdom of crystalline skies and Utopian dreams. There are order and structure for all the souls who are naturally drawn to the Arbiter and wish to cleanse their souls. It’s the realm with the purest of souls. There’s also Ardenweald which is ruled by the Winter Queen and offers habitation for the Night Fae Covenant. It’s a place for spirits of nature and Wild Gods where they can prepare themselves to be reborn into the world of the living and start their cycle anew.
The third realm is called Revendreth and is inhabited by the Venthyr Covenant. A dark place where no one wants to go, a place for prideful souls full of flaws that come here to atone for their sins, hoping to redeem their souls before it’s too late. It’s a dark land where a bit of light tries to break through. Last but not least, there’s Maldraxxus. It represents the home of necromancers, wicked beasts, and abominations. It’s the place where Necromancers steal their juice from and create undead soldiers who pledge their allegiance to the powerful Necrolords. Wherever you choose to be, the art team of Blizzard makes it clear that they still have some talent to spare. Some of these zones still look tremendously well, even though it’s a very old game. The fact that they use a simple graphic system and manage to create awesome looking environments still baffles my mind. There are also some well-thought areas where verticality plays a big part. Verticality is always great because the area feels a lot bigger than first meets the eye but it also creates some confusion because the area can sometimes be a bit too difficult to explore.
“Joining a certain covenant offers a few covenant-related skills.”
Different realms also mean different rulers and quests to complete. Each realm has a specific covenant that works its magic on a specific realm. Each realm offers different challenges and creates a totally new experience than other realms. They also let you see the world around you from their perspective and this opens a lot of interesting side stories. Joining a certain covenant offers a few covenant-related skills. The choice of players, on which covenant they’d like to join will probably be based on what skills match their specializations best. In the end, when you’ve completed the storyline of a certain covenant, you’ll be able to play the storyline of another covenant with a different character.
There’s also “The Maw” which is another area and it’s owned by our main enemy “the Jailer”. The Maw allows you to tackle daily quest events to gain some sockets that can be used to make some of your gear stronger. It’s a classical system and every veteran player will probably go for it but “The Maw” isn’t a fun place to run around. Not only story-wise but also practical. It’s an area where players will be confronted with different challenges along the way. The Maw is the last defense against our champion and the Jailer is able to make this journey in The Maw a lot more difficult. The Jailer is able to alternate the course of events, which makes each daily quest different than the last one. The Jailer can send out his minions to make your journey more difficult or he can de-buff your stats which will make the quest a lot harder. You also can’t mount, so you’ll lose precious time doing so. Hopefully, Blizzard will tweak this place to make it a lot more enjoyable.
“…which opens up a lot of opportunity for those alt-oholics…”
Getting into World of Warcraft isn’t always easy for new players, just for the main reason that it has too much content for a newcomer to delve in. With every expansion comes a lot of new stuff, so before you can really get into this new content, there’s a long way of 120 levels to grind through. I mean, there was… Blizzard scaled-down the grinding process with the coming of Shadowlands. With the latest expansion, the highest level (120) has been scaled down to level 50. Shadowlands allows the veteran players to gain 10 more before reaching the end game. In other words, the leveling process of a new character has been made a lot more streamlined which opens up a lot of opportunity for those alt-oholics which is a welcomed feature for both veterans and beginners. How Blizzard accomplished this? Well, they use the same system as Guild Wars 2 where enemies/environments scale down their stats to your level.
They’ve also implemented a way to replay an expansion of your choosing. Each expansion offers a full leveling experience from level 1 – level 50. It’s amazing to fully enjoy content without the drag of a long grind. Blizzard also introduces a new starting area which gives players a decent “how-to-WoW” -experience from level 1 to level 10. After that, you can choose to play BFA or another expansion. All classic races can start in their hometown or the new area. New races start from level 10 at the capital of their alliance, also giving the opportunity to choose a timeline they want to experience. This feature is a great example to show that Blizzard’s listening to the community.
“Also, classes are now a lot more fun to play than they used to.”
Shadowlands also offers new ways to make some progress with your character. There’s still the option to focus on the PVE ( raids, Mythic + dungeons,…) or PVP experience but with a few tweaks to get rid of the grind and add more of the pleasure. Blizzard handles with the concept, work/play for what you want without the hassle. Also, classes are now a lot more fun to play than they used to. Why? Well, it’s all about the returning spells that make these classes back to their own identity. Blizzard confirmed that they had this issue where classes became more lookalikes of other classes than a more standout personality. Blizzard tries to re-create the classes’ identities by giving them back what they’ve lost. For example, a warrior receives its “Shatter Throw” once again and mages can do “Fire Blast” or “Arcane Explosion”, no matter what specialization they have. In other words, classes are fun again. You have an awesome reason to start a new character from the bottom, because of the reworked leveling experience and the classes going back to their original state. Great job, Blizzard!
Some of the newer dungeons have also been created to make a more story-based dungeon. Every new dungeon has its own story with its own interesting characters and bosses with different abilities. Every aspect of the dungeon is linked to creating this one big whole where everything matches. Bosses’ abilities are being learned while you’re doing the dungeon, this makes it a lot easier to familiarize oneself with these boss encounters and mechanics they present. Blizzard also follows the classic path of offering different difficulties of a certain dungeon which allows you to challenge your character a bit more and get some amazing loot afterward. Every difficulty level has its own challenges to overcome but you truly learn how to complete the dungeon along the way.
“It’s a great way to keep the players busy but it loses its touch after a couple of hours.”
There’s also Torghast, one of Blizzards’s selling points of Shadowlands. This tower is a special tower that the Jailer has developed to give those veteran players some extra challenge on a whole other level. Torghast is a challenging place where players will have to defeat different enemies on each level to gain access to the next level but also gain some interesting rewards like materials for your legendary gear. These materials are necessary to craft your own legendary weapon. Torghast is a roque-like experience where a player gains new powers and an HP boost along the way while making the enemies a lot harder and more difficult to overcome. It’s a great way to keep the players busy but it loses its touch after a couple of hours. Hopefully, Blizzard will make Torghast a place where they can experiment with new mechanics or even overpowered abilities. It’s a place where the possibilities are endless.
Shadowlands also starts off with a new raid called Castle Nathria. A beautiful gothic-styled castle that’s full of interesting enemies and special boss encounters. The raid offers a more cooperative form of a dungeon where communication is the key to victory. There are different boss encounters with interesting mechanics with their own background and personality. The raid is challenging and yet amusing to experience. For example, one of the bosses has to be defeated by dancing. The mechanic is fairly simple, move around to different dance partners, shake it up and survive the dance battle. Whoever loses its dance rhythm, loses his life, and will be sent to the graveyard. It’s great to have that kind of amusement during a concentrated battle. The raid was pretty difficult at the beginning which offered a lot of challenges but Blizzard wanted to make the raid a bit friendlier towards the casual players and therefore nerfed the raid. It’s great to see that Blizzard wants everyone to enjoy their content on their own level but this takes away the challenge of hardcore players. Keeping the community satisfied in both ways is a hard battle to master.
“It may be a system older than before, but a more direct approach seems to be more favorable by the community.”
Blizzard also learned that an RNG-system isn’t always favorable in an MMORPG. In previous expansions, there was this loot system where players could re-roll their stats of a dropped weapon to see if it could get any better. Of course, this system made sure you had bags full of weapons that could be useful in different situations, then again this system overloaded your bag system and made sure no other item could be placed in your bags. This needed to be different and so Blizzard decided to go to a more simplified system where item stats depend on the difficulty level of your completed dungeon and they can’t be re-rolled anymore. It may be a system older than before, but a more direct approach seems to be more favorable by the community.
PVP players will also be pleased to hear that the armor vendor has returned in Shadowlands. By doing battles in the arena and the rated PVP-mode, you’ll earn conquest points that can be spent on interesting items in these vendors. Players will again be able to choose the item that they really want and work towards it. No more struggling for that epic gear in PVP.
Conclusion:
Shadowlands is a great expansion and tries to fill in the gaps where BFA left off. Blizzard shows that World of Warcraft still isn’t done. It tries to make the game easier getting into, challenging for veteran players, and experiment with something the community has never seen. Blizzard truly listens to the community and it tries to stay relevant within the MMORPG genre. Playing how you want it, without the needless grind is a great step forward. Finding the balance between pleasing new and veteran players is a hard task, and every MMORPG struggles with this battle. However, just showing you’re listening and adapting along the way, is the best way to keep your community interested in your product. Shadowlands is a great way to start your journey in Azeroth, even when you don’t have too much time on your hands!
