The MMORPG world has gone through major upheavals. Not only is Classic WoW getting its next and possibly final patch, but the latest retail expansion, Shadowlands, is up and running after a tense delay. So far, opinions on whether it’s a good or bad thing overall are starkly divided, with some hating the new features and others loving them.
Whether or not an expansion is truly great is always easier a few years down the road, so it’s not a shock to see that the jury is still out on this one. In the meantime, there are a few things that players can seem to agree on. Some additions are receiving rave reviews along with angry rants, and some players are missing features that were lost from the previous expansions. Future updates will determine if Shadowlands gets elevated to the same status as Wrath of the Lich King.
10 We Love: The Lore Of The Afterlife
Nobody really knows what happens after death, so how can this break any previous lore? A lot of the preconceptions players had about where their ‘toons went after death didn’t extend further than the nearest graveyard anyway. None of that matters now, because not only is this otherworldly zone beautifully designed but players have a world of infinite universes to explore. That has some potential for some creative writing along with some epic and godlike adventures with heroes of old.
9 We Don’t Love: Whimper Of The Lich King
We were at least hoping for a good fight, Blizzard. In fact, it seemed that’s what you were hyping up the whole time. For Horde players, Sylvanas is the character that led us into the Icecrown Citadel and helped us defeat the Lich King when he was the Big Bad Guy. It seems that thanks to her deal with the Jailor, Sylvanas is so OP that she doesn’t need anyone’s help slapping Bolvar around, taking his hat, which happens to be some amazing artifact of power or something, and ripping it in half. End of fight. That’s a miserable anti-climax along with just being some bad writing.
8 We Love: The Maw
This might be something out of a dark game like Diablo or inspired by the Daedric worlds Bethesda universe. It’s terrifying, which gives an otherwise easy game some real suspense. The part it plays in the lore is equally chilling, with all souls doomed to its unforgiving darkness without a hero’s intervention.
This is the seat of the Jailor, this expansion’s Big Bad Guy, and it’s just as inhospitable as you would expect. It’s a place of exposition where you learn more about the Jailor and his realm as the quests advance. Not everyone is a fan of the zone, as it’s a lot more boring than it looks despite the dark and scary motif.
7 We Don’t Love: Split Uther
There’s a lot of weird retconning here, and it seems strange that one of the most beloved characters of lore would turn into a villain, except that he doesn’t really know he’s a villain? His previous life scarred him so deeply that he’s still suffering from it, but it’s discouraging to find out that even Death won’t give him any peace. If you’re into the lore, you might be surprised to find out he’s been here a while even though his soul was supposed to be imprisoned in Frostmourne until Arthas was defeated. There still might be more storylines to this that we’re not privy to yet, so hopefully, this makes more sense later.
6 We Love: The Level Squish
To be fair, there are a lot of mixed opinions on this, with strong feelings on both sides. Some players see this as a welcome change that was inevitable, as an infinite level cap that rises with every expansion got stake after a while. Others saw it as a cheap, uncreative way to get around a problem that raising the level cap for every expansion created in the first place. Everyone seems to have noticed that this is a direct parallel to leach off the popularity of Classic WoW, which is hilariously ironic considering Blizzard insisted people didn’t really want a version of the old game.
5 We Don’t Love: Yet Another Time Travel Retcon
Confess, Chromie, what did you have to do with this? It turns out that we can’t blame everyone’s favorite member of the Bronze Dragonflight for this piping hot mess. Here’s the issue at hand; in order for certain popular figures from Azerothian history to appear in the Afterlife, some changes had to be made, and thankfully there’s an alternative timeline from a previous expansion, Warlords of Draenor, that conveniently allows this.
However, there are several characters that died in both timelines, but in different ways, so how does that compute for them after death? Gul’dan, the first Orc Warlock, is one example. In the original timeline, he’s just a magical skull, but then he’s still active in the expansions with alternative timelines but then he escapes into the main one in World of Warcraft: Legion. Where was his soul? In Illidan’s’ favorite binky or in the Shadowlands? Did it get broken up like Uther’s soul did? Except that we don’t know what happened to Uther. See how weird this all is? I don’t even think Chromie can explain it.
4 We Love: No More Attunements
These have been more or less gone since the Mists of Pandaria expansion, but now they’re finally gone entirely. They might have sounded like a good idea at one time, but even players in Classic WoW, where attunements are a daily reality that raiders simply accommodate, roll their eyes at how useless and boring they are. They also didn’t make a lot of sense. The attunement process for Blackwing Lair is relatively easy, and that’s a whole raid. To get into Onyxia’s Lair, on the other hand, is a long and arduous quest chain that requires you have a certain necklace in your pack every time you go, and that’s to access one measly cave.
3 We Don’t Love: Even Less Emphasis On Guilds
It’s a trend that’s continued since Cataclysm, and some players love it while others don’t. The changes are now so extreme, however, that some are wondering why they exist at all. It’s now easy enough for solo players to get the gear they need and use the LFG or LFR features, negating the need for any guild to help you attain those raid drops or finish the high-level class quests. Why not just play a stand-alone game that doesn’t have the added distractions of pet battles and crowded servers? Or better yet, just play Classic WoW.
2 We Love: “It’s Not BfA”
It’s rather depressing that this is the one thing that most players seem to agree on right now, that the best thing about Shadowlands is that it’s not as bad a Battle for Azeroth. That was a notoriously disappointing expansion that set a low bar for all things to come.
The issue with BfA was that it leaned on the benefits of nostalgia too hard, trying to recall the heyday of the RTS games in an era of MMORPGs. Warlords of Draenor suffered a similar fate for the same reason and made even less of an impression on both critics and fans, but it seems to get less hate than BfA overall.
1 We Don’t Love: Boring Quests
The environment is beautiful, and the storyline is rich and compelling, but the quests are easy to the point of being mind-numbing. Talk to this NPC, follow them, go where they say, read more text, and finally, an easy battle ensues that’s impossible to lose. Rinse, and repeat. This seems to be a growing problem with each Blizzard expansion, where players are coddled, led, and spoon-fed even the smallest details so it hardly feels like they’re playing at all but just button mashing at the right time. The scenery can only distract us from that so long, Blizzard.
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