It’s no secret that World of Warcraft has had two difficult years. Shadowlands initially showed a lot of promise: Torghast looked interesting and fun, new areas were colorful and fresh, and Azeroth’s afterlife contained many possibilities to meet ancient heroes and villains.
But Shadowlands’ brilliance faded quickly, perhaps more so than any previous expansion. This sets a lot of eyes on Blizzard as it prepares to officially announce the upcoming WoW expansion on April 19. And now, more than ever, Blizzard really needs to learn from the mistakes of the past and solve some of the biggest problems that have plagued Shadowlands.
Regardless of the inevitable trend Sylvanas Wanderer’s story storyThere was the toll of the pandemic, and the Activision Blizzard lawsuit couldn’t have come at a worse time, either. But there are other big factors that have marred the recent expansion, and they are in the hands of the current developers.
power hungry
The Covenant System It was a major sticking point from the moment it was added when Shadowlands launched in 2020. It gave you the option to join one of the four factions once you reach level 60, giving you specific abilities associated with your class. Channels were another way to customize your class and specifications within your chosen covenant. It sounds good, except that it was nearly impossible to change your mind without falling behind.
Reigns have been supplemented with Legendary gear, once again, giving each player multiple options with the passive effects provided. But the coin required to craft it was initially tucked behind Torghast, which was easy to clear for some classes but a very miserable experience for others.
Then the Sanctum of Domination raid introduced Domination Fragments in patch 9.1, as a strange alternative to Limit Items. In fact, obtaining domination equipment with hollows caused players to get headaches as much as possible likely to collide With the armor slot where you have equipped your legendary equipment. Then the Shard drops you need for your class relied heavily on RNG, which resulted in a lot of players feeling less powerful than their more fortunate peers.
All of these systems sounded exciting on paper, and I can appreciate that the hope was to give players a meaningful choice of how they play their character. But as always – and not just in WoW – players will always choose what counts as the best talent and gear by copying the best players, regardless of whether they’re LFR playing, attacking with Legendary difficulty, or Mythic + dungeon timing.
It ceased to be a choice as soon as someone discovered the dead.
So, even with the best intentions of giving us agency about how we want to play, it’s no longer an option – for most players, at least – once someone figured out the definition. It makes it hard to switch between these systems to be perfect for different content, or if there’s a change in the balance in your class, that doesn’t respect the player’s time.
Fortunately, most of the problematic power systems have been fixed in recent patches, but the change seemed to come too late. They are still in the game but you can now freely switch between pledges and channels without penalty, redeem currency from unwanted legends, and Domination Shards are no longer relevant in 9.2.
However, most of the friction in Shadowlands could have been avoided even before the expansion launched, when players began to question the limitations of Covenants selection in the beta and PTR versions.
Destiny formation
However, not everything about Shadowlands was bad. The Great Vault is an evolution inspired by the weekly chests of Battle for Azeroth, offering up to nine gear options if you complete the required activities each week. And the raids were great too, with interesting bosses and mechanics – even if they were tightly tuned.
The Permanent return to Mage’s Tower It was another big point, and the Eternity’s End update finally saw the return of level groups, something we’ve wanted for a long time. It’s true that the current loot trading rules made it difficult to get the full four pieces at first, but it was definitely a step in the right direction.
So I’m cautiously optimistic about the upcoming expansion announcement. And if the leaks are true, all the better. We need a break from our time in the afterlife and it would be good to keep our feet steady on Azeroth for a while. The expansion of the legion rich in tradition was the perfect response to the alternate history setting unpopular with the warlords of Draenor, so finally Accessing the Dragon Islands in 10.0 can work the same way. I just hope the team addresses the issues that arose in Shadowlands and makes our next adventure the best yet because World of Warcraft may not fully recover from another major gaffe.
If anything, the next expansion needs to not try too hard to break the mold. At its core, World of Warcraft is already a great game – it’s fast approaching its eighteenth anniversary, and there’s a reason it stands against time when many other MMOs come and go. You may not always get things right, but when it does, there is no other place I’d rather be in than Azeroth.