world of warcraft classic The first full year of World of Warcraft’s Shadowlands expansion has come to a close, and despite a promising start, 2021 was far from a good year for Blizzard’s MMO.
world of warcraft classic The lawsuit that’s currently raging between California’s Department of Fair Employment and Activision Blizzard certainly hasn’t helped. Much of it pertains to the behavior of former World of Warcraft higher-ups, and the knock-on effect for the community as a whole has been confusion, anger, and in many cases, decisions to stop playing the game entirely.
Even if you put the lawsuit to one side, World of Warcraft is still sitting on shaky ground. Shadowlands pre-sales were high, and the usual excitement for a new expansion was certainly rife. But concerns over Covenants, a choice you had to make at max level and one you couldn’t easily change, were one of the sticking points early on. It also quickly became clear that Torghast, the new ‘endless’ dungeon that rewarded you with the resources required to make legendary gear, was unfairly balanced towards the certain world of warcraft classic
In short, power systems—the Covenants, Soulbinds, Conduits, Renown, and legendary gear—felt like they were more numerous and complex than usual at the beginning of Shadowlands. This was made worse when the 9.1 patch, Chains of Domination, arrived in June and risked trivializing the effort put into legendary gear over the previous six months.
Of course, if you don’t care about the endgame grind and are happy leveling alts, collecting mounts or chasing achievements, most of the concerns with Shadowlands post-launch may have passed you by. But the reality of what most of us hoped Shadowlands would be versus what the expansion gave us over the last 12 months is starkly different.
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Things are… complicated. World of Warcraft is right in the middle of the expansion cycle, which is never a good time to experience the best the MMO has to offer. Players naturally start to fall away as the novelty of new content wears off and there’s less to do—it just so happens to be more pronounced right now.
Still, if you haven’t played at all during Shadowlands, there’s a lot to get caught upon. We are two raids into the expansion, with a third set to arrive with the next patch. Many early inconveniences have been addressed, too, making it easier to catch up. Covenants can now be swapped easily—providing you’ve maxed out your Renown on at least one character—and you can unlock flying in many of the Shadowlands zones, making it much quicker to get around.
Of course, the leveling process is far more streamlined these days too—the max level was squished down from 120 in Battle for Azeroth to 60 in Shadowlands. If you want to level a character from scratch, you can choose which expansion