World of
Warcraft Shadowlands Update
Blizzard recently announced the
delay of their newest World of Warcraft, Shadowlands. As one of the premier marketplaces which
players can purchase World of Warcraft accounts,
this announcement caught us off-guard. The reason for this delay, aside from delays
in schedule brought about by the pandemic, was so the Blizzard team could have
time to polish the expansion. Taking the time to deliver a more finished
expansion is a move that has been generally well-received by the players and
fans, despite the delay. In fact, most WoW players seem content with the extra
time to get adjusted to the pre-Shadowlands patch, considering the amount of
core gameplay changes that are coming with the newest expansion.
There are,
however, a few people who view this delay rather cynically, feeling that their
time and money aren’t well spent on a company that cannot meet the deadlines
they set for themselves. This is, perhaps, a legitimate criticism. Or at least,
a criticism that the WoW development team can understand, have since they have
taken the time to name the changes they thought were important enough to delay
the launch.
The changes
in question, as Blizzard is happy to point out, come specifically from the
feedback from the Shadowlands players in the beta. These are changes, beyond
bugs and glitches, that actual WoW players thought were necessary to preserve
the integrity as well as the, dare we say, the fun of World of Warcraft. That
is great, right? Or at least it can be, but we definitely think we need to take
a closer look at the specific feedback being addressed before we go jumping to
conclusions.
In one of
the most recent posts about the continued work on Shadowlands, after the delay
that is, there were a couple of key areas that the development team decided
highlight. They opened with their commentary on The Maw.
As one of
the stand out new environments in the expansion, it has to be ready to make an
impression on veteran players. Blizzard said that the point of The Maw is that
it is supposed to be bleak and inhospitable. That being said, they clarified
that they know that game fun beats world theming, and that the feedback they
were getting from players was they missed the mark on that. Blizzard said that
while they want to preserve the “sandbox” feel they had set out to create when
designing The Maw, they planned on restructuring the area to make it feel like
ti has more direction. They also said that there would also be a focus on
making visuals and combat in The Maw feel more varied.
These
changes to The Maw sound solid but at this point, with the information that we
have, it is definitely a “wait and see” scenario. We simply don’t know what
sort of changes are in the works, but at least we know they are listening, and
that is some comfort to long-time players.
The other
key point that the WoW development team wanted to address was the feedback they
were receiving on Conduits. The number one thing they were hearing was the
conduit system and its current build were too restricting to allow for fun and
diversified play. While the dev team defends the week-long cool down for the
conduits as appropriate for higher-level players they can understand waiting
for so long would feel limiting. The system they are replacing it with does
seem more flexible if more than a tad complicated. The conduit switching now
works on a charge system. The charges start at 10 when unlocked and recharge at
a rate of 1 a day. Unlocking a new conduit also ups the charges back to full.
Blizzard says this will allow players to try new builds and still have access
to the conduits they need.
There is
some criticism about this change, though. Some players think that taking the
time to develop another system of restrictions was a waste, especially
considering that restrictions still exist. It would seem that the primary issue
players were having is that the conduits are being restricted at all and that
making the system more flexible isn’t really addressing the problem. We are
going to heir a bit on the optimistic side as far as giving the new conduits
system a shot before coming to any conclusions.
The last
note that Blizzard has to make on the changes in Shadowlands is about the
combination of covenants and classes. This comes as no surprise to anyone
following the news of this expansion as the balancing of this particular aspect
of gameplay has been a topic of much controversy. The dev team posted that they
had been focused on the extremely underpowered and the overpowered ends of the
spectrum, but as they work their way through the issues, and towards the
center, there is a lot more work to be done fine-tuning the combinations of
these new abilities and the soulbinds that pair with them.
That was all
that was said on the matter. We are a bit wary about how little information is
being given about fixing one of the top concerns on most players lists. We get
it, a lot probably has to be done to achieve the perfect balance required for
Shadowlands to work. We don’t need a detailed list of changes to put faith that
the right ones are being done. But compared to the information about The Maw
and the conduits system, the vagueness here is concerning, especially when the
expansions delay coming only a month before the official launch date.
Blizzard is
no stranger to biting off more than they can chew. In fact, the recent level
squish is probably a testament to the forethought that is put into power
changes from expansion to expansion. You can hardly blame the player base for
being a bit wary at this point.
Even without
the announcement of a new launch date, Shadowlands has still been promised for
later this year so players will probably not have to wait longer than an
additional two months. Will Shadowlands be ready by then? Should it still it be
released if it isn’t? No probably not, but they will release it anyway and WoW
players have come to expect nothing less.
Regardless of the changes, we expect the expansion will be popular and
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