World of Warcraft: Shadowlands

 PC
User Score
4.3

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 1456 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 543 out of 1456
  2. Mixed: 79 out of 1456
  3. Negative: 834 out of 1456

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  1. Alori
    Aug 3, 2021
    1
    It's just so frustrating to see how bad this game has become. The last good expansion was Legion, but battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands are really awful. Grindy, frustrating systems, poorly written story, unbalanced, buggy and a ton of restrictions for players (they still hold on the age-old faction system, no improvements whatsoever).
    Be better Blizzard.
    • Allow all races to become    It's just so frustrating to see how bad this game has become. The last good expansion was Legion, but battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands are really awful. Grindy, frustrating systems, poorly written story, unbalanced, buggy and a ton of restrictions for players (they still hold on the age-old faction system, no improvements whatsoever).
    Be better Blizzard.
    • Allow all races to become neutral & available for both factions. No more missing out on fav. races & racials.
    • Allow optional cross faction raiding. Let us finally play together, if we want to.
    • Give us our cities (Teldrassil & Undercity) and old zones with better graphics back.
    • Stop ruining the lore or like others already suggested, reset the story entirely and put us back to the end of Legion.
    • Give casuals a reason to stay, like player housing!!!! or/and something similar like the mage tower or/and the artefact weapon skins.
    • More customization options, a lot more customization options are needed.
    • Be more transparent and start communicating with the players again Blizzard.

    I don't really believe, that Shadowlands can be saved at this point. But who knows, maybe 10,0 will be better.    … Expand
  2. Henry12A
    Aug 15, 2021
    2
    If you're looking for yet another disappointment after battle for azeroth, Shadowlands is waiting for you.
    Too many systems, endless grinding, too many chores, ridiculous lore, random loot, still old and toxic faction restrictions because racial segregation/racism is seemingly the pillar of wow... like... wtf?, still no class balance, big faction imbalance, still laughable few    If you're looking for yet another disappointment after battle for azeroth, Shadowlands is waiting for you.
    Too many systems, endless grinding, too many chores, ridiculous lore, random loot, still old and toxic faction restrictions because racial segregation/racism is seemingly the pillar of wow... like... wtf?, still no class balance, big faction imbalance, still laughable few customization options that might have been ok in 2010 but definitely not in 2021, random loot, still no account wide valor unlock and reputation, tiresome alt leveling, still no graphic update for old zones, not even for the capitals, arrogant behavior of the Devs, who either keep ignoring feedback or twist it so that nobody is happy with the result, gigantic content droughts, yet they still let their players pay for each and every month...
    I could go on, but in short: Shadowlands is yet another disaster after bfa.    … Expand
  3. Jokaal
    Aug 2, 2021
    1
    Shadowlands is just as bad as Battle for Azeroth. Don't play it. Wait until they improve their game. I have no idea when or if that will ever happen. Guess the only thing we can do is wait and see. That and giving them feedback. Maybe one day they come down from their high horse and start listening to their players again.

    The lore is important to me. So one thing that could bring me    Shadowlands is just as bad as Battle for Azeroth. Don't play it. Wait until they improve their game. I have no idea when or if that will ever happen. Guess the only thing we can do is wait and see. That and giving them feedback. Maybe one day they come down from their high horse and start listening to their players again.

    The lore is important to me. So one thing that could bring me back is a story reset, like others already wrote before me. Reset the story from bfa and shadowlands and bring us back to Legion. Make bfa and Shadowlands a fever dream or a vision. Something like that. Just remove that stuff from the canon storyline. No, there wouldn't be a problem with the allied races, but I come to that point later.

    Another popular request, that I too would like to see in retail is a change for the faction restrictions.
    Let us play with all players and let us play all races in each faction, not just half of them.
    You want to remove toxic stuff in your game? Racial segregation is probably one of the biggest aspects of your game that promotes toxic behavior. It's like those old dudes shouting at people with a different skin color that they shouldn't get near their lawn because they look different. It's pretty much the same ingame with people yelling they never ever want a specific race in their city.

    Blizzard should finally open the gates for free race choice, all races for both factions. Yeah, I get it. It's just a game. Who cares if there is racism in world of warcraft and a strict devide between races. I still don't have to like a virtual form of racism.
    But even if you ignore that, the devide forces players to make compromises they don't want to make. Because they can't have their favorite races and racials in the faction they prefer. They can't experience the game in the way they want and that is a bad thing and takes away a good portion of fun.
    Blizzard should also allow cross faction raiding and bgs, also a popular request I agree on.
    With these changes they would finally end the problem of faction imbalance. With these changes they would make the game much more fun.

    But what about the allied races? It's really not hard to come up with an alternative way how they join.
    Here are some examples.

    Nightborne, High Mountain Tauren and Lightforged Draenei:
    Both Alliance and Horde helped them during Legion. That they are neutral and join both factions is the only natural thing to do.

    Void Elves:
    The encounter with Alleria can stay the same and through Alleria a part of them joins the Alliance.
    However a second group should join the Horde. It's very weird that a faction like the Horde wouldn't want them, since they had never problems with "dark magic", if you want to call it like that. Just delete the part with the sunwell encounter.

    Dark Iron Dwarves:
    The connection to the other dwarf clans can stay. So that group joins the Alliance.
    However their whole being and their theme fits the Horde very well. It would feel natural for a group of them to join the rough ranks of the Horde.

    Vulpera:
    While the Horde explores the deserts and comes across the Zandalari, they also befriend the desert Vulpera of Vol'dun.
    The Alliance befriends the Tiragardesund Vulpera, so there would be a sailor and traveler theme for Alliance Vulpera. Taelia should be the one leading them in to the Alliance. They would be a very good fit for the Alliance and could have their own ship in the Stormwind harbor. They could also put a group of Vulpera into Stormsong Valley. There should be enough place for them too.

    KulTirans:
    They would look so awesome within the Horde with a sailor or even pirate like them, while the Alliance befriends them trough their connection to the Proudmoore family.

    Mechagnomes:
    Should be neutral anyway, since both Horde and Alliance befriends them. The encounter with Mechagon can stay similar to the original.

    Zandalari:
    Here you could take a group of banished trolls or travelers for the Alliance. Zandalari, who don't feel connected to the kingdom.

    Mag'har:
    I'll admit that these guys are a bit tricky, but you could play it out this way: They had the same vision or whatever it was from bfa and Shadowlands too and find a way to Azeroth in order to help out.

    It's really easy to come up with ideas and it didn't took more than 5 mintutes to come up with something. So yeah, it's easy to make it work. For all races by the way. Not just the allied races.

    I'm also tired of the borrowed power system. If there has to be such a system, then let us return to the legendary weapons in Legion.    … Expand
  4. Trakkal
    Aug 26, 2021
    1
    If you didn't like Battle for Azeroth, you won't like Shadowlands. The lore is still awful, the faction imbalance is still being ignored, for whatever reason they seemingly put all their effort in ridiculous time consuming systems, way too long content droughts.

    Quality of life things, that would bring me back: >Seems to be a popular request and I want it too - less faction    If you didn't like Battle for Azeroth, you won't like Shadowlands. The lore is still awful, the faction imbalance is still being ignored, for whatever reason they seemingly put all their effort in ridiculous time consuming systems, way too long content droughts.

    Quality of life things, that would bring me back:
    >Seems to be a popular request and I want it too - less faction restrictions. Let me play what I want, with whom I want and where I want. #AllRacesForBothFactions & #CrossFactionRaiding
    >I'm tired of all the systems. It was a healthy amount during Legion, but I hated everything what came after that and it is unbalanced, so please make some of the new stuff cosmetic.
    >Get rid of Sylvanas entirely. Everything surronding that character turns to trash. The whole lore has been ruined because of her as the overpowerd Mary/Evil Sue in this game.
    >More customization options. It is 2021 and the few cusomization options in this game are laughable.
    >Old world update. Start with the main cities and make them bigger with more unique districts.    … Expand
  5. Luciuso
    Aug 12, 2021
    1
    I want to like wow, but I just can't anymore. I really enjoyed Legion, but I hated battle for azeroth and Shadowlands is... just frustrating... because I finally came to the conclusion that there is just too much wrong with this game.
    The lore, faction and class imbalance, throwaway systems, same old faction restrictions, choregast... there is nothing to like about the newest expansion.    I want to like wow, but I just can't anymore. I really enjoyed Legion, but I hated battle for azeroth and Shadowlands is... just frustrating... because I finally came to the conclusion that there is just too much wrong with this game.
    The lore, faction and class imbalance, throwaway systems, same old faction restrictions, choregast... there is nothing to like about the newest expansion. On top of that the long content droughts. There is nothing new and innovative in Shadowlands. Still no player housing, still no old world upgrade, still no cross faction raiding and more playable neutral races, almost no new customization options, nothing really for casual players.

    One of the most frustrating things... Blizzard seemingly just don't care for their players. They only care for money. Feedback keeps being ignored or currupted. Wow is in a really sad state.    … Expand
  6. Dratin88
    Sep 1, 2021
    3
    After reading several critics I think, that many players (including me) are just tired of Blizzard recycling old systems and retconning the lore non stop, so that they can have their favorite banshee in the focus all the time.
    With old systems I mean those:
    - that let you grind with no end in sight, just so that you can put all that effort in the garbage with the next expansion and    After reading several critics I think, that many players (including me) are just tired of Blizzard recycling old systems and retconning the lore non stop, so that they can have their favorite banshee in the focus all the time.
    With old systems I mean those:

    - that let you grind with no end in sight, just so that you can put all that effort in the garbage with the next expansion and start grinding for the nex borrowed power system.

    - that prevent you to play your favorite race in your favorite faction and on top of that doesn't let you play with your friends in the other faction. The old faction system with all it's barriers is really an outdated relict of the past that needs to go. Not the factions per se, but the fact, that races can't choose their faction freely and players, who can't do dungeons and raids with their friends in the other faction.

    I want to add, that world of warcraft looks like a very lazily designed game. There are huge parts of the world, who are stuck in the past, if you look at the graphic. It's really pathetic actually. Also the customization options... there are so few. It's really embarrassing for modern standards...    … Expand
  7. Zijs
    Sep 5, 2021
    1
    Really bad expansion.
    With the faction imbalance still being unchecked by Blizzard the game reached a point where it's in a really unhealthy state.
    Really wish they would finally do something about it. Like playable races becoming neutral, so that everyone can have every race and with that all racials would be available on both sides, plus of course optional cross faction raiding.    Really bad expansion.
    With the faction imbalance still being unchecked by Blizzard the game reached a point where it's in a really unhealthy state.
    Really wish they would finally do something about it. Like playable races becoming neutral, so that everyone can have every race and with that all racials would be available on both sides, plus of course optional cross faction raiding. Something that should be standard in this day and age, but for some reason Blizzard doesn't seem to care for the health of the game.    … Expand
  8. Srekk32
    Sep 3, 2021
    2
    The lore is still bad, the old world looks still bad, the faction imbalance is still bad, the class imbalance is still bad, the borrowed power system is still bad the racial segregation is still there so it's also still bad, the customization options are still too few and with that bad.
    If they would at least let us play all races in both factions instead of holding on to racism as their    The lore is still bad, the old world looks still bad, the faction imbalance is still bad, the class imbalance is still bad, the borrowed power system is still bad the racial segregation is still there so it's also still bad, the customization options are still too few and with that bad.
    If they would at least let us play all races in both factions instead of holding on to racism as their game's pillar... but nooo, they continue forcing us to make frustrating compromises.

    I'll wait until they make noticeable changes to their game and not just their usual halfbaked stuff. I don't see why I should come back to the same old miserable game, that is stuck in outdated nonsense.    … Expand
  9. Ekeys
    Sep 6, 2021
    1
    I thought bfa was awful, but then came Shadowlands... If you are interested in a good story and nice gameplay, then don't play Shadowlands. Play other games until Blizzard finally improve this awful game. Last time I had fun was during Legion and that is several years ago.

    -Along with the cringe lore I really hate that there is no change, no development whatsoever in this game. Just the    I thought bfa was awful, but then came Shadowlands... If you are interested in a good story and nice gameplay, then don't play Shadowlands. Play other games until Blizzard finally improve this awful game. Last time I had fun was during Legion and that is several years ago.

    -Along with the cringe lore I really hate that there is no change, no development whatsoever in this game. Just the same stuff recycled in every expansion.
    -We have 2021 and there is still no player housing in this game.
    -There is still racial segregation in this game, meaning the playable races don't have free will, making the whole faction choice stuff extremly stale and based on the given races, resulting in a lot of frustrating compromises and hugely worsen the player experience.
    -There is still no cross faction play- seeing how bad the faction imbalance has become (costed by the Devs for neglecting one faction over several years) that means, that one faction has a much harder way to play this game since so many players left and if you are in one faction you are not allowed to play with your friends in the second faction. So basically you get punished, if you play the small faction. That is not a way to handle a playerbase and wow is the only game that activly supports such a toxic system. It's beyond me why they do that and with that why there is still racism with the division of the races. Players are leaving wow in masses and this is definitely one of the reasons.
    -Most zones have still horrendous outdated graphic and the customization options are... well... far too few. Again... not even close to what you would expect for a game in 2021.
    -Might be just me, but it feels, that even the music got worse with Shadowlands.
    -Along with the faction imbalance the class imbalance makes the pvp scene just awful.    … Expand
  10. Ollei
    Sep 8, 2021
    2
    Just an overall frustrating and bad player experience.

    After all these years they are STILL ignoring the faction imbalance. What the actually heck? You really think an edgy elf race with ugly customization options like tentacles, that nobody asked for and with a rock in the void, that nobody but them can visit would help, while giving the overpopulated faction a whole zone and a huge    Just an overall frustrating and bad player experience.

    After all these years they are STILL ignoring the faction imbalance. What the actually heck?

    You really think an edgy elf race with ugly customization options like tentacles, that nobody asked for and with a rock in the void, that nobody but them can visit would help, while giving the overpopulated faction a whole zone and a huge city with tones of lore? Or overweight humans and even more gnomes with amputated arms and legs, while giving the other faction an adorable new fox race that could be straight out of a Disney movie?

    How about Blizzard stops trolling one of the two factions and start taking notes from other popular games like ff14, where there is no faction imbalance for obvious reasons, but I write it anyway.
    ff14 has no racism in their game. There is no racial segregation and no matter what faction you are in, you can play all races, so nobody feels miserable, because they have all their favorite stuff in their favorite faction.
    Not to mention that ff14 actually let's you play with players from other factions.
    I will stay in ff14 until Blizzard finally fixes the faction imbalance, ends the racial segregation and allows cross faction stuff.    … Expand
  11. Ingvar_Alighier
    Jan 8, 2021
    0
    - Если вы любитель мобильного гейминга на пк и вам нравится система батлпасов(известность в ковенанте очень похожа), то Добро Пожаловать!
    - Если вы ожидаете от игры лора(который не пойми куда вывернут), то Добро Пожаловать!
    - Если вы цените свое личное время, то не Стоит в Это Играть! P.S. - красиво сделано, но кроме визуала, более менее интересного лора(который не пойми куда вывернут)    - Если вы любитель мобильного гейминга на пк и вам нравится система батлпасов(известность в ковенанте очень похожа), то Добро Пожаловать!
    - Если вы ожидаете от игры лора(который не пойми куда вывернут), то Добро Пожаловать!
    - Если вы цените свое личное время, то не Стоит в Это Играть!
    P.S. - красиво сделано, но кроме визуала, более менее интересного лора(который не пойми куда вывернут) в этом дополнении вы больше ничего не найдете. Такая же система траты времени, как и в БФА.
    P.P.S. - Оставь надежду всяк сюда входящий!    … Expand
  12. YrikiX
    Aug 31, 2021
    2
    Shadowlands is just awful. Just like Battle for Azeroth. I kinda hoped things would get better with this expansion... but the game is still bad.
    They ruined so much of what I used to love in wow. The lore. Oh the lore... it's so cringe... I can't even... What I would give, if they would just reset everything back to Legion...
    We all worked together in our class halls back in Legion,    Shadowlands is just awful. Just like Battle for Azeroth. I kinda hoped things would get better with this expansion... but the game is still bad.
    They ruined so much of what I used to love in wow. The lore. Oh the lore... it's so cringe... I can't even... What I would give, if they would just reset everything back to Legion...

    We all worked together in our class halls back in Legion, then came bfa and whoops, now the Horde is like: You know what? I know we were friends like 5 minutes ago, but I feel like today is a good day for genocide. Don't mind me slaughtering all of you, including woman and children. wtf is this writing? Now in Shadowlands it's like all of that isn't all that bad, let's be friends again! Get you sh* together Blizzard. This back and forth between factions is beyond ridiculous. That brings me to my next point actually.
    Why can't we play together?
    Mmos are supposed to be social games, yet wow is as anti-social as it can get.
    Why can't we choose a faction regardless of the race we want to play?
    It's like USA's racial segregation back in the day all over again, just this time in a virtual game.
    And why on earth does it matter, if we are Alliance or Horde, if we want to raid together with our friends, who might prefer a different faction?
    Why can't we play together the way we would enjoy it the most?
    Faction rewards like mounts and tabards can stay, but the other restrictions like race and one faction only raiding should go asap to make this game more social and enjoyable.    … Expand
  13. Magicus
    Jul 31, 2021
    3
    World of warcraft - Shadowlands = a hot mess. Not worth playing at the moment.
    Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands are almost as bad as Warlords of Draenor. When it comes to story and systems it's even worse. Not to mention recent events regarding the bad working environment for employees.
    Nonetheless, there is a lot of things, that would bring players back and I want to hold on to hope.    World of warcraft - Shadowlands = a hot mess. Not worth playing at the moment.
    Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands are almost as bad as Warlords of Draenor. When it comes to story and systems it's even worse. Not to mention recent events regarding the bad working environment for employees.
    Nonetheless, there is a lot of things, that would bring players back and I want to hold on to hope. Blizzard and World of Warcraft still can become better.

    I've read a lot of reviews, comments and critics and there is so much Blizzard could do, to improve their game:

    -
    Lessen faction restrictions.
    Allow all races for both factions with new short introduction quests and voice overs.
    Allow cross faction raids, battlegrounds and alt mailing.
    Keep factions as a pure rp factor (exclusive clothes, rewards, cities etc.). Players shouldn't have the feeling of missing out something important, while deciding to join a faction (like races, racials, easier way of finding groups).

    -
    Real player housing.
    Garrisons are not player housing. Many players would love to have real player housing in Azeroth.

    -
    Less systems, less time gating, less or no borrowed power at all.

    -
    Improve the lore. Undo the events of bfa and Shadowlands. Square Enix did something similar to their game ff14 and now it's extremly popular. You can do the same. Both, bfa and Shadowlands were a mistake.

    -
    Better communication with the playerbase instead of ignoring it for the most part.

    -
    Better graphics.
    There are a lot of players, who wish for an updated Eastern Kingdom and Kalimdor.

    -
    A lot more character customization options for all races.

    -
    More playable races like Sethrak, Arrakoa, Ogre etc.
    Like all the others they should be neutral and available for both factions.

    -
    Return to Azeroth.
    Many players feel more connected to Azeroth instead of some other worlds and realms.

    -
    Account wide reputation.

    -
    Balanced pvp and pve.

    -
    Impactful professions.

    -
    Make old zones relevant again. (Not by destroying them!!! but rather by improving them and giving them some new quests).    … Expand
  14. Tritoon
    Jul 30, 2021
    2
    World Of Warcraft is in a bad state, in a really bad state.
    Though I want the game to improve, since I have good memories of it and it would be nice to come back to it someday, right now I would advise everyone not to buy it. For various reason. Some of them I'd like to list in this comment.
    1. Poorly written lore. I'm one of those nerds, who wants a good story in a mmorpg. World Of    World Of Warcraft is in a bad state, in a really bad state.
    Though I want the game to improve, since I have good memories of it and it would be nice to come back to it someday, right now I would advise everyone not to buy it. For various reason. Some of them I'd like to list in this comment.

    1. Poorly written lore.

    I'm one of those nerds, who wants a good story in a mmorpg. World Of Warcraft doesn't have good lore anymore.
    Ever since the end of Legion the lore went downhill.
    It is in such a bad state, that you would think the writers were drunk while they wrote Battle For Azeroth and Shadowlands. They ruined major lore characters left and right and the factions look like complete idiots with the way Blizzard is handling the story. Both of them.

    - Possible Solution:
    The only way how to save the lore at this point is to retcon Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands. I'm sorry, but I really don't see any other way how to fix that cringe fanfiction level of writing. Make Battle For Azeroth and Shadowlands a vision of some old god or something and return to the end of Legion. The "allied races", who came during that time can join the factions regardless. Just change the way how they join.

    2. Faction imbalance, faction restrictions and it's anti social player impact.

    Many people already wrote it, but it can't be criticized enough. World Of Warcraft's playerbase is known to be kinda toxic. Part of it comes from the over 17 years old faction restrictions.
    Many years of neglecting one faction and favoring the other faction led to a mass exodus, so that the faction imbalance is beyond repair.
    Now those, who are still playing this game feel forced to play the overpopulated faction,- to get pve and pvp done and because Blizzard decided to give the overpopulated faction the two most liked races of the game, along with a constant focus on said faction, like story, cinematics and so on.

    The faction system just doesn't work anymore. There are other popular mmos like Final Fantasy 14, who even have more than 2 factions and there is no faction imbalance whatsoever. Why? The reason is extremly simple: You have access to all races and you can trade and play with all players, regardless of the faction.

    - Solution:
    End the racial segregation.

    It is outdated, it is frustrating for the gameplay (both because you can't play your favorite race in the faction you prefer and because of the racials), it is unfitting and unnatural for modern standards when it comes to racism and it overall doesn't give a good look to the game. First thing you see while logging in is this huge resriction that doesn't let you play the game how you would enjoy it.

    Allow cross faction raiding, cross faction bgs (not same faction bgs!) and cross faction alt mailing, so that the players are able to send gold and other things to their characters in the other faction.

    All the rest can stay as it is. Horde players can't enter Alliance cities, Alliance players can't enter Horde cities. Warmode stays the same too.

    3. Graphic, especially the old world
    The old world looks for the most part as if it is stuck in the early 2000nds. This is on such a lazy level... Just... oof. This game looks really, really old. It's just embarrassing how bad World Of Warcraft looks.

    - Solution:
    Upgrade the world.

    4. The people working on this game:
    It's very sad, but I have to put it on this list too:
    The straw that broke the camel's back are the horrible working conditions for the employees of Blizzard. I won't go in to details in this comment. Everyone can read about the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard. The working environment needs to change asap.

    These are the most important things for me. However there are of course a lot of other things that needs to be better. Like borrowed power systems, class imbalance and so on. This game has a lot of potential, but ever since the end of Legion... it's just sad to see what this game has become. It certainly isn't a game anymore, that I would recommend playing. I do hope though it will become better. Hopefully sooner than later.    … Expand
  15. Solgalos
    Jun 16, 2021
    1
    Shadowlands is extremly boring and feels like a chore. There are too many systems, that nobody needs, too many grinds, huge faction imbalance, that keeps being ignored, classes are still a mess when it comes to balance, the story keeps being painfully bad with Blizzard's constant focus on that over powered edgy banshee and there is absolutely nothing new- meaning you wouldn't even feelShadowlands is extremly boring and feels like a chore. There are too many systems, that nobody needs, too many grinds, huge faction imbalance, that keeps being ignored, classes are still a mess when it comes to balance, the story keeps being painfully bad with Blizzard's constant focus on that over powered edgy banshee and there is absolutely nothing new- meaning you wouldn't even feel rewarded for doing all those grinds.

    New race? Nope.
    New class? Nope.
    Player housing? Nope.
    Customization options? Still laughable compared to other games and extremly unbalanced between the races.
    Graphic update for the old world? Nope.

    Biggest disadvantage and reason not to play this game: Racial segregation/Racism.

    Like several others already wrote, this game has a huge problem with this topic.
    Playable races are strictly split in to two factions. The only exception are Pandaren, who can be in both factions. There are several examples from real life events trough history where this happend and where people practised racial segregation. The same is happening in this game.

    It's not only extremly annoying from a gameplay perspective because players can't play their favorite faction with their favorite races, it also promotes toxic behavior in the game. "I don't want to see race XY in this city!" "I would never ever want to play together with race XY!"
    What the heck is this kind of mindset? Looking at the real world it's like saying "You have a certain skin color, so you should stick to a certain side and keep away from me!"

    I'm sorry, but there is really no other way to call the racial segregation. It's a form of racism and I for one find it very distasteful and I'm not enjoying to see it in wow. People who think that is cool treats every race pretty much like a robot, who can't think for it's own. A good story lives from it's individuals and there are enough neutral groups, who would gladly join the other faction. The faction should matter, not the race you choose. It's just stupid to explain to a new player that he can't play his favorite race on his favorite faction because racism is apparently something Blizzard likes to call the pillar of their game.

    And to clarify, factions should stay. A little bit of competion is nice (although cross faction raiding should be optional), but Blizzard should end racial segregation in retail as soon as possible. I know a lot of players, who (just like me) would resub to wow again, if all races are allowed on both factions. At least that would give us some fresh air after years and years of the same old stuff. Together with nice intro quests for the races, who join the other faction and maybe even new transmoggs to collect it would be a nice addition to spend some time with leveling new characters.    … Expand
  16. Xodin1
    Aug 11, 2021
    1
    I give Shadowlands 1/10.
    The story is on the same level as battle for Azeroth = bad. Really bad. I've read fan fictions, that had a better quality than bfa and Shadowlands.
    The big promise to give us more customization options for the races is a complete joke. They gave us almost nothing new. Not even something simple like different body heights were implemented. Systems upon sytstems    I give Shadowlands 1/10.
    The story is on the same level as battle for Azeroth = bad. Really bad. I've read fan fictions, that had a better quality than bfa and Shadowlands.
    The big promise to give us more customization options for the races is a complete joke. They gave us almost nothing new. Not even something simple like different body heights were implemented.
    Systems upon sytstems sprinkled with yet another borrowed power system to keep us grinding. Yeah... no thanks.
    Last but not least we still have to suffer under the stupid faction restrictions.
    Wanna play a dark iron dwarf in the Horde? „Guess what, you can't.“
    Wanna play a Tauren in the Alliance? „Nope. We here at Blizzard prefer to keep our races separated because we value racism as the pillar of this game.“
    Wanna do raids with your friend, who happens to prefer the other faction? „Nope. We here at Blizzard don't want you to socialize in our game and would like you to hold on to tribalism.“
    Factions per se aren't bad, but the restrictions to keep races and players strictly separated is really bad.    … Expand
  17. Rigor81
    Jul 27, 2021
    1
    This game has a lot of problems, unfortunately.

    One of the main issues is the glorified racism in form of racial segregation in this game. Not only is the restriction of separated races rather questionable for obvious reasons, it's also very annyoning from a gameplay perspective. Instead of choosing a faction because a player prefers the overall theme, the valors and ideals, they    This game has a lot of problems, unfortunately.

    One of the main issues is the glorified racism in form of racial segregation in this game.
    Not only is the restriction of separated races rather questionable for obvious reasons, it's also very annyoning from a gameplay perspective.

    Instead of choosing a faction because a player prefers the overall theme, the valors and ideals, they strictly make you choose based of the given races. Meaning if you prefer one faction over the other you only get access to half of the races.

    Seriously, what an idiotic and outdated system. I had several cases where my friends and I had to make annoying compromises, just in order of being able to play together.

    The faction system of wow is extremly anti-social.
    Racial segregation is questionable and annoying af. Especially if you consider, how unnatural it feels. However Blizzard likes to paint the picture of races, who follow a strict hivemind instead of making their own free decision.

    Then again, if you look at the recent scandal of Activision Blizzard, it comes to no surprise that racism in form of strict racial segregation is seen as a pillar of wow.

    Another thing that is annoying af are the pointless systems and borrowed power, that you can put in the trash right after every expansion or even after every patch. Meaning all the hours you spend with grinding for it are basically a waste of time.

    Then there is all the time gating for new content, just so that they can keep you/your money as long as possible in the game.

    Then there is the class and faction imbalance.

    Then the lore, that keeps being retconned, characters gain and loose power randomly just to fit Blizzards current narrative. The lore is in such a bad state, that I'm of the opinion that a bunch of middle school students could write a more solid story than what we have now.

    The list go on...    … Expand
  18. Woody271
    Jul 9, 2021
    1
    Horrendous storytelling.

    Without writing down spoilers here, I will only say this much; every aspekt of Blizzard's main focus character for 3 expansions now, who is called „The dark lady“ by some edgelords, is extraordinaire garbage. They stretch her story arc for far too long now, put her in most cinematics, retcon her every other patch just so that they can keep her around and so    Horrendous storytelling.

    Without writing down spoilers here, I will only say this much; every aspekt of Blizzard's main focus character for 3 expansions now, who is called „The dark lady“ by some edgelords, is extraordinaire garbage.
    They stretch her story arc for far too long now, put her in most cinematics, retcon her every other patch just so that they can keep her around and so they can sell more figurines and pictures for the people, who (for some reason) still simp for that murderous maniac. But I guess hot women sell, no matter how bonkers a character is written.

    Second point to despise World of Warcraft in it's current state are the things Blizzard is preaching with it's game:

    1)
    Genocide, mind controll, raising the dead and spreading the plague is totally fine, if it's comitted by a good looking woman. You should totally forget and forgive her for all her crimes. Don't you see? She just had a bad day and now she is totally good again! No consequences at all!

    2)
    Racial segregation and racism is fun and the pillar of World Of Warcraft!
    That's why it's totally importat that we separate players by race.
    The race matters, not the factions and that's why we strictly separate players by race instead of letting them choose their faction freely and without racial segregation.

    Wtf? In what universe should racism be a pillar of something to build on? It's beyond me, how Blizzard is still supporting the idea of racial segregation and racism after all this time and claim it's a pillar of wow.

    The faction should matter, not the freaking race a player wants to choose.    … Expand
  19. Magicxx
    May 11, 2021
    1
    What a disappointment and here I tought it couldn't get any worse after Battle For Azeroth...

    Let's start with the lore: After the awful story in bfa where they forced an idotic faction war that made absolutly no sense they now continue focusing their story on the worst written character there is. A certain „banshee queen“ that commited one atrocity after the other; (genocide-twice,    What a disappointment and here I tought it couldn't get any worse after Battle For Azeroth...

    Let's start with the lore:
    After the awful story in bfa where they forced an idotic faction war that made absolutly no sense they now continue focusing their story on the worst written character there is. A certain „banshee queen“ that commited one atrocity after the other; (genocide-twice, destruction of whole areas, mind control, spreading the plague, slavery and so on, the list is long). She has been the focus since 3 expansions now, but as long as there are some people, who see in her some weird kind of edgy waifu... well, I guess Blizzard will continue treating her like an overpowered Mary Sue that is above all else.
    Gotta sell those figurines I guess. Worst case scenario they'll redeem her and portray that ex dictator as an innocent victim. Considering Blizzard's horrendous writing skills since the end of Legion I wouldn't be surprised. Genocide isn't all that bad, if it is commited by a good looking woman, huh Blizzard? Time to forgive her! Well, but we will see what route they will go. Hopefully 9.1. will be the end of that mass murderer.

    Faction Imbalance:
    It's no secret that they focus only on one faction, while the other is treated like a second class citizen.
    - only one faction got a new and obvious mainstream race, while the smaller faction got a reskin of a rather unpopular old race.
    - only one faction got 2 well established races with two huge and beautiful cities, while the smaller side got a race, that came in the very last patch and a second race that came literally out of nowhere
    - both races without a city.
    - one side got a better looking version of an old race, while the smaller side got an overweight version of an old race.
    - one side got 4 high quality cinematics all revolving on the meaning of their faction, while the smaller faction was playing the side character.
    - the smaller side has less druids and shamans than the other side.
    - the last Blizzcon was revolving around the bigger faction... again.
    - the second most popular city of the smaller faction was destroyed, while the other faction only lost a hardly visited city, that still can be saved.
    - 2 zones were attacked of the smaller faction and are now in an endless loop between being controlled both factions. Thus useless.
    - the racials of one faction were overpowered for far too long, yet every small advantage of the smaller faction gets nerfed immediately.

    Despite all of that Blizzard claims they have no idea, how to help the smaller faction. I'm no expert, but treating the smaller faction like an afterthought propably doesn't help.

    Did it change with Shadowlands? Nope. They continue as if it never happend. With an attitude like that I agree with many others on this subject. They should just end the racial segregation. All races for both faction + cross faction raiding.
    The damage is far too big at this point, so this would be a good solution. Not to mention that racial segregation and thus a kind of racism... it's a game sure, but it doesn't sit well to claim the pillars of wow are build on racial segregation. Racism is not faction identity. Ideals and so on, that is faction identity. These archaic restrictions harm the community and thus the social factor of the game. "You can only play with me, if you choose a race of this specific pool." "But I like that race..." "Then you can't play with me." Excuse me, but what? You shouldn't separate players like that. Like seriously.

    And lastly there is the usual stuff like unbalanced classes, the never ending grinds and all the systems... way to many systems in Shadowlands.

    I really want to like the game and I have good memories playing it. But I'm sorry, it' utterly trash since bfa. Still hoping it will get better though.    … Expand
  20. Tedaku
    Jun 1, 2021
    0
    Shadowlands is probably the definition of lazy. Yes, the new zones are nicely done, but apart from that there is absolutely nothing new and innovative in this game.

    You get to grind for the sake of grinding. Mindless systems, which only costs frustration for a lot of players. Broken class balance. Huge faction imbalance for a lot of reasons caused by the Devs. Extraordinary    Shadowlands is probably the definition of lazy. Yes, the new zones are nicely done, but apart from that there is absolutely nothing new and innovative in this game.

    You get to grind for the sake of grinding.

    Mindless systems, which only costs frustration for a lot of players.

    Broken class balance.

    Huge faction imbalance for a lot of reasons caused by the Devs.

    Extraordinary brainless lore, just like in Battle for Azeroth and Warlords of Draenor.

    No new class.

    No new race.

    Same old faction restrictions:

    - meaning you get only half of the races, if you prefer one faction over the other, because racial segregation and racism is fun I guess? Seriously, get you sh* together Blizzard. Racism is definitely not faction identity. All races should be available for both factions.

    -only access to a small part of the playerbase, meaning that especially the smaller faction has a huge disadvantage. Allow cross faction raiding.

    How a game can be so openly anti social and activly supporting racism is beyond me. Being a different race doesn't mean that every race has a hivemind and should stick to one side.

    And finally the archaic graphic for old zones and npcs. One word: Embarrassing.    … Expand
  21. Sonelai
    Aug 9, 2021
    0
    After the complete failure Battle For Azeroth I was looking forward to Shadowlands. Turns out Shadowlands is just as bad as bfa. Man I wish we could go back to Legion...
    Furthermore the game became almost impossible to play because of the ever growing faction imbalance. I am so tired of these outdated faction restrictions that prevent us from playing the game in a healthy way; namely    After the complete failure Battle For Azeroth I was looking forward to Shadowlands. Turns out Shadowlands is just as bad as bfa. Man I wish we could go back to Legion...
    Furthermore the game became almost impossible to play because of the ever growing faction imbalance. I am so tired of these outdated faction restrictions that prevent us from playing the game in a healthy way; namely without racial segregation and with the option to play with everyone.
    Keep factions, but burn the faction restrictions down. Burn it!
    Allow all races to every faction + allow cross faction raiding, at least for hero and mythic. Factions can still get their unique stuff, like mounts and tabards for example. However races should not be exlusive to only one faction

    If Blizzard would care about the health of the game they would do something to fix it. So why is the imbalance still being ignored?

    So yeah, in short, not a fun game at all.    … Expand
  22. Caeki
    Jun 27, 2021
    2
    Right after Battle for Azeroth and Warlords of Draenor the worst expansion so far.

    As someone, who cares for the lore I'm so tired of the bad writing ever since the ending of Legion. Worst thing about it is the forced faction conflict with all it's brainless restrictions for players and on top of that the constant focus on „Ms evil Mary Sue“ and her idiotic plot armor. Jeez what a dumb    Right after Battle for Azeroth and Warlords of Draenor the worst expansion so far.

    As someone, who cares for the lore I'm so tired of the bad writing ever since the ending of Legion. Worst thing about it is the forced faction conflict with all it's brainless restrictions for players and on top of that the constant focus on „Ms evil Mary Sue“ and her idiotic plot armor. Jeez what a dumb character.
    Only good thing, that could come out from the 8 month wait for patch 9.1, that brings us absolutly nothing innovative (just more systems upon systems together with reskins of old stuff), would be for that banshee to FINALLY die for good at the end of the raid.

    The main reason however why I really can't stand the game anymore is the racial segregation, like several others mentioned before. It's so stupid, that we can't play with all our friends, if some prefer a different faction. Jeez, how hard can it be to allow cross faction raiding for those, who want it.

    That and the fact, that we can't play our favorite races in the faction we prefer... like wtf?

    Why is racim so important for Blizzard? You can't tell me, that a Goblin for example wouldn't join the Alliance, when there are already active Goblins working for the Alliance in the SI7, or Lightforged Draenei the Horde, or Vulpera from Tiragardesund as sailors the Alliance, or as counterpart sailor humans the Horde, or High Mountain Tauren the Alliance and so on.

    For each and every race there is a reason to prefer the other faction, yet we are stuck with a racist system that promotes toxic behavior and separates the playerbase in an unhealthy way.

    I could go on with the faction imbalance, that Blizzard is making constantly worse with their decisions or the class imbalance, the outdated graphic and so on... it's just tiring at this point...    … Expand
  23. Drely
    Aug 23, 2021
    1
    Shadowlands is so incredibly bad, just like bfa.
    Who writes such a cringe story? Who thought it would be a good idea to give us yet another bunch of awful systems? Who thought it would be a good idea to keep ignoring the faction imbalance? Seriously, who at Blizzard supports all these awful decisions? No wonder there is such a big exodus.
    Final Fantasy 14 is so much better in so many    Shadowlands is so incredibly bad, just like bfa.
    Who writes such a cringe story? Who thought it would be a good idea to give us yet another bunch of awful systems? Who thought it would be a good idea to keep ignoring the faction imbalance? Seriously, who at Blizzard supports all these awful decisions? No wonder there is such a big exodus.

    Final Fantasy 14 is so much better in so many regards. ff14 let's you play every race in every faction, in contrast to wow, where there is still racial segregation. Considering the lawsuit against Blizzard you would think they would get rid of racism in their game, but nah, they hold on to stricly separating the races. ff14 has player housing. Wow... not so much. xD ff14 has way better gear, not those ugly pixelated age old looking gear. ff14s Devs actually listen to their player's feedback. Yah, imagine that! ff14 doesn't have faction imbalance, because despite having several factions they let their players play together. Then you look at that extremely anti social faction system in wow on top of their racist division of the races. Yikes! And ff14 has a really solid story. Wow... just don't has a good story anymore. Bfa completly ruined the story and SL continues to be bad.

    Hopefully world of warcraft will get better, but until then, Final Fantasy 14 it is!    … Expand
  24. Ykkaru
    Aug 24, 2021
    1
    I played two months of this expansion and quit. 9.0 is awful and 9.1... yeah, is still awful.
    You could argue that the systems suck, that the class balancing sucks, that the graphic sucks, that the limited customization options suck, that the story with that edgy bashee sucks and yeah, I would agree with that, but what I hate the most about this over 16 year old game is the fact, that    I played two months of this expansion and quit. 9.0 is awful and 9.1... yeah, is still awful.
    You could argue that the systems suck, that the class balancing sucks, that the graphic sucks, that the limited customization options suck, that the story with that edgy bashee sucks and yeah, I would agree with that, but what I hate the most about this over 16 year old game is the fact, that Blizzard continues to ignore the faction imbalance and activly made it worse with the former expansion Battle For Azeroth.

    I agree with many others on this subject. Given how bad the whole situation is, the only change, that would bring me back would be to make all races neutral like the Pandaren (preferable with their own introduction voice overs and new voice lines) and to give us players the ability of choosing optional cross faction raiding and bgs. So gamers would have free choice of playing with their own faction or together with the other faction.

    But the way it is now and has been for over a decade,- limiting the races to one faction only and the players to not being able to actually play together in this mmo, if they prefer one faction is just frustrating.

    Sadly I don't see this change coming anytime soon. Luckly there are other mmos, that are much more fun than wow at the moment.    … Expand
  25. ForestCrow
    May 16, 2021
    1
    So far this expansion is really, really bad.

    Classes are unbalanced, the story feels very dull, you have to grind for hours, systems upon systems that nobody asked for and they broke their promise to give all races more customization options throughout the expansion. What they did was giving orcs 70% of the new options, while the rest went to the other races. Some races got almost    So far this expansion is really, really bad.

    Classes are unbalanced, the story feels very dull, you have to grind for hours, systems upon systems that nobody asked for and they broke their promise to give all races more customization options throughout the expansion. What they did was giving orcs 70% of the new options, while the rest went to the other races. Some races got almost nothing at all. So most of the races look half baked. Now they said there will be no new customization options in Shadowlands. False advertising.

    The old world, even the capitals look like a patchwork rug with some new elements, but most of it uses the same graphic from 15+ years ago and that shows. They didn't even implemented new sky boxes. How lazy can you get?

    They only gave one faction a new race last expansion, so you would think they would announce, when they will give the other faction a new race aswell. Guess what, they just don't give the other faction a new race. How fair. All the rest of the allied races were lazy reskins. Now with Shadowlands there is no new race and no new class.

    The faction imbalance is getting worse by the day and they do the exact opposite of helping the smaller populated faction. Seriously, if you can't treat the factions fairly you should end the racial segregation alltogether. It's an outdated concept anyway and makes for many races no sense. Racial segregation should finally end. Let us play whatever faction with whatever race we choose. More freedom would FINALLY be something new and interesting, instead of repeating the same stuff over and over again.
    It's extremly outdated after 15+ years and unfitting, -painting the picture that you can only play with your friends when they choose a race of a specific pool. Players should be able to choose their faction regardless of the race. Racism is a pretty questionably pillar to build your ideals on. Just saying.

    Factions should stay for those who like them, but pve grouping for dungeons with the other faction should also be allowed in order to play with all players.    … Expand
  26. Haarl
    May 9, 2021
    0
    This is undoubtedly the worst WoW expansion yet. The devs seem to be focused on making the game slow, annoying, and inconvenient, as if a game set in a kind of hell should be true hell for the players. I found I was simply unable to force myself to log in and keep playing, even with months left on my subscription. My sub finally did run out (I had not been playing) and 2 1/2 monthsThis is undoubtedly the worst WoW expansion yet. The devs seem to be focused on making the game slow, annoying, and inconvenient, as if a game set in a kind of hell should be true hell for the players. I found I was simply unable to force myself to log in and keep playing, even with months left on my subscription. My sub finally did run out (I had not been playing) and 2 1/2 months later nothing I have seen makes me want to return. If anything, it's looking even more dire as the devs double down on their unworkable conceits.… Expand
  27. 5View
    Jan 15, 2021
    4
    Pros:

    Not many. On the margins, it's merely more of the same. This might be a pro if you like more of the same. The visual effects are pretty good. Depending on your taste, you are likely to find one or more zone in Shadowlands to be beautiful. Cons: More of the same. Seriously, not much new here and... You'll end up in endless repetition. Anima farming. Same handful of    Pros:

    Not many.

    On the margins, it's merely more of the same. This might be a pro if you like more of the same.

    The visual effects are pretty good. Depending on your taste, you are likely to find one or more zone in Shadowlands to be beautiful.

    Cons:

    More of the same. Seriously, not much new here and...

    You'll end up in endless repetition. Anima farming. Same handful of world quests over and over and over and over. Same old battlegrounds over and over and over. Basically, raiding and dungeons aren't many, and in any case you'll be doing them over and over and over because....

    Rewards? Aren't many. Everything is time gated to begin with. But RNG drop rates are almost non-existent, or might as well be. This expansion truly is a massive grind, where you find yourself mindlessly repeating the same activities week after week, even day after day, only for a few droplets of rain when you are dying of thirst already. The designers of the expansion appear to have devised a theory that gamers like being punished for spending huge chunks of their free time in the world of World of Warcraft. Simultaneously, they don't want you to progress in any noticeable way because you might feel you've "finished" something, maybe the game, and unsub.

    There's nothing new in this game. Borrowed powers? Done it before. New playable race or class? Nope. Useful professions? Hah, you gotta be kidding.

    Conclusion: There are players who have invested years in the game, and perhaps if repetition and long periods of busy work between raid or mythic times are what they like, then they'll stick around, and why not. You'll get to repeat (without the rinse first) over and over.

    Basically, the cost of subscription to WoW is way too high for the content provided. You can pay as much or even less for a large number of streaming services and find far more entertainment with any of those. Heck, you can save your subscription from WoW and spend it on other games for your PC or console and probably find games much more rewarding (entertaining!) than this slog fest. You'll notice a very obvious difference between the design team of WoW and the design team of other games. In WoW, the designers play YOU, by time gating so much and giving you so many hoops to jump through before you can have much fun with your character in Shadowlands. In other game, the designers try at least to find ways to make the minute to minute and hour to hour experience of playing them FUN. This is a huge and noticeable difference.    … Expand
  28. hungry_dingus
    Jan 15, 2021
    2
    4/10

    Time-gating and poor loot progression between PVE and PVP hinder replay value. The addition of a rogue-lite in the game was not at all innovative and has only become a vehicle for adding a time-sink with no real value. The final pin, the lack of effort in balancing classes. Ultimately it is an expansion that doesn’t respect the end user and panders largely to a smaller    4/10

    Time-gating and poor loot progression between PVE and PVP hinder replay value.

    The addition of a rogue-lite in the game was not at all innovative and has only become a vehicle for adding a time-sink with no real value.

    The final pin, the lack of effort in balancing classes.

    Ultimately it is an expansion that doesn’t respect the end user and panders largely to a smaller subsect of elite players.

    Honorable mention to the music and art department who did an awesome job setting the tone and atmosphere.    … Expand
  29. Xsander
    Jan 16, 2021
    0
    Covenant system it's a big fail, can't play pve and pvp cuz of night fae ability for my hunter is the total trash in pvp but it's best covenant for pve. I don't like it when you need to choose only one direction pvp or pve.
  30. mihael447
    Dec 30, 2020
    0
    worst pvp balance i've ever seen in wow. i regret that i spend money on this
  31. worminsh
    Jan 13, 2021
    1
    Expansions sales point Thorgast, after 10th time doing it, its gets super boring.
    Nothing new invented, covenants its same talent trees, thats about it, nothing NEW in that game, what you seen 10 years ago its all the same, just different wallpaper.
    PVP the most unbalanced game what I seen so far, they have not tested their game, cos there are so many broken skills and 1 shoots. Bots    Expansions sales point Thorgast, after 10th time doing it, its gets super boring.
    Nothing new invented, covenants its same talent trees, thats about it, nothing NEW in that game, what you seen 10 years ago its all the same, just different wallpaper.
    PVP the most unbalanced game what I seen so far, they have not tested their game, cos there are so many broken skills and 1 shoots. Bots running wild and nothing has done about it,. they say they ban them each 6 months in waves, after 10 minutes those bots are back.
    I got a feeling that they are lacking workforce cos basic things has not been done.
    Art team are great, thats on positive note, but I came for gameplay not to look at pretty things.    … Expand
  32. houjo2000
    Jun 28, 2021
    2
    The great levelling overhaul makes ShL seem very alt friendly at first- but once you hit max level the sheer amount of grindy, time wasting repetitive systems is at an all time high, you need a daily planner to keep track of it all.

    At the same time, they've made the game considerably less rewarding, reducing the loot from just about every type of content, reducing the value of the    The great levelling overhaul makes ShL seem very alt friendly at first- but once you hit max level the sheer amount of grindy, time wasting repetitive systems is at an all time high, you need a daily planner to keep track of it all.

    At the same time, they've made the game considerably less rewarding, reducing the loot from just about every type of content, reducing the value of the content that is done by the most players. This game might be fine for the hardcore players with premade groups, but it's unacceptable for just about everyone else after the initial chunk of content.

    At the moment, this feels worse than WoD, BfA and Cata- avoid it if you can, and if you're a new player pick another MMO. The easy leveling system may make this seem at first to be very welcoming to new players, but everything else makes that far from the truth.    … Expand
  33. TonyMcTonyJimmy
    Dec 16, 2020
    3
    Blizzard seems to have bent over backward to appease so-called "difficulty fetishists" who thrive on masked tedium disguised as "challenge" with Shadowlands. A lot of the fun is crushed by tedium, chores, and scaling mobs that remove all sense of progress. Got some gear? Mobs hit you harder and take longer to kill now, grats. PVE sees nerfs because of PVP. Classes see heavy nerfs becauseBlizzard seems to have bent over backward to appease so-called "difficulty fetishists" who thrive on masked tedium disguised as "challenge" with Shadowlands. A lot of the fun is crushed by tedium, chores, and scaling mobs that remove all sense of progress. Got some gear? Mobs hit you harder and take longer to kill now, grats. PVE sees nerfs because of PVP. Classes see heavy nerfs because they perform well. I'm not kidding. Poor performing/designed classes will often be left to rot until the next expansion, because Blizzard is against working on a class during an expansion. Unless it's to nerf it into oblivion.

    The game looks good and sometimes works well. But the pile of other stuff just wears you down until you can't remember what fun felt like.

    Thanks to this a lot of players spend more time going at each other on the forums than actually playing the game. It amazes me Blizzard is cool with the "like it all without question or get out" crowd but they've never stepped in to stop it. They actively pit us against each other by stoking competition at every angle, even inside your own faction.

    If you like to have fun. If you play games for enjoyment. If you like story, player housing, collections, crafting, gear appearances, or community you'll probably be disappointed. You're no longer rewarded for doing something. Like a proper casino you only have a chance to be rewarded. This supposedly makes gear "meaningful." The reality of it is by the time you get the gear you either no longer need it or can't use it. Some rewards ignore your class specialization and gives you whatever's laying around. Hunter has two ranged specs and one melee; your chances of getting a weapon not for your spec is surprisingly high. repeat gear is very common as well. So, a hard fought "reward" goes in the trash.

    Gear is no longer seen as a tool, like a saw or hammer. The common anti-gripe is that you don't need the gear if you're not doing high-end raids and so forth. Well, if you did it without that gear, to get that gear, then you didn't need it either. Blizzard is telling a carpenter to build a deck for the chance to receive a saw or hammer as compensation. If they don't get a tool after building 12 decks? Well, maybe next time. Blizzard tells us this is "exciting."

    The only people left who can really enjoy all of this are suffering from severe Stockholm Syndrome. It makes me sad but I guess that's what happens when time-played and e-sports take over your passion for making a game. I'm sorry. I just can't pretend I don't feel like Blizzard hasn't abandoned all but a small contingent of players.    … Expand
  34. slisbad
    Jan 6, 2021
    0
    PvP is totaly trash like allways 85% of the classes are completely over-tuned.
    But there are ONLY 2 devs for everything(LOL) and those 2 guys have absulutly no clue about the game.

    DONT BUY OR PLAY IF YOU LIKE PVP

    lets hope Riot is bringing out there new game soon so we can finally stop playing that trash game
  35. Taccoru
    Aug 6, 2021
    1
    Shadowlands feels soulless.
    While I felt a lot of anger and frustration during bfa, because of how bad that expansion was... now there is just a feeling of disappointing for Shadowlands left. It just gets worse and worse with this game.
    They ruined the story and with that several important characters within the story... It feels like the authors of the story deliberately trash the    Shadowlands feels soulless.
    While I felt a lot of anger and frustration during bfa, because of how bad that expansion was... now there is just a feeling of disappointing for Shadowlands left. It just gets worse and worse with this game.
    They ruined the story and with that several important characters within the story... It feels like the authors of the story deliberately trash the lore...
    They don't respect the time of their playerbase. Quite the opposite. With endless grinds, random loot and time gating they make everything feel slow. They force their players to spend as much time as possible in the game in order to work their ingame chores off, so that Blizzard gets their monthly payment from us.
    They do not listen to feedback. Often they do the exact opposite of what their players ask them for or corrupt feedback and make it eben worse than before.
    They do not let us play together. They still split the playerbase with their old faction system and continued through several advantages like better racials, playable mainstream races, spotlight within the story etc. to give the players the feeling that they have to migrate to the overpopulated faction. They are promoting toxic behavior, which leads to some players acting like racist idots, who enjoy shouting at others for not being in their faction and yelling stuff like certain races don't belong in their „oh so great“ faction and shout certain races should be wiped out and similar stuff.
    But it seems as if that type of players are those Blizzard is catering to. While other players just want to be able to play all races in their favorite faction and to be able to do raids and battlegrounds together with the other faction. You know, being able to play with all players... something that should be normal in a mmo.    … Expand
  36. Zokko
    Aug 8, 2021
    2
    There is almost nothing I like about Shadowlands. So a similar expierence to battle for Azeroth. Both expansions are pretty bad. At least we're not stuck in a brainless faction war, that made no sense after Legion.
    Speaking of factions, yeah, the imbalance is growing bigger and bigger by the day. No wonder, if you look at how Blizzard is handeling them, regarding playable races, racials    There is almost nothing I like about Shadowlands. So a similar expierence to battle for Azeroth. Both expansions are pretty bad. At least we're not stuck in a brainless faction war, that made no sense after Legion.
    Speaking of factions, yeah, the imbalance is growing bigger and bigger by the day. No wonder, if you look at how Blizzard is handeling them, regarding playable races, racials (in past expansions) and so on. That is a problem for years now, but Blizzard hasn't done anything to help the small faction out. They did quite the opposite if you look at the allied races.
    It's gotten so bad, that there is only one thing that would make this game playable and fun again. Get rid of most of the faction restrictions. Seriously.
    Let us play together with all the races we want. The playable races need to be neutral asap. Cross faction groups for raids need to happen aswell.
    There would still be a lot of money earned from faction transfers and race changes, once players get the chance to choose their faction and races freely without being forced to play in the overpopulated faction. So no worries there, Activision Blizzard.^^
    There don't have to be whole new zones for the races. just small introductions and a starting point. Aswell as new voice lines (for the Alliance! for the Horde!) for all races. Shouldn't be a big deal for such a huge company.
    Can't be so hard to reduce a part of the toxicity in this game by giving the players more freedom and the ability to actually play together.    … Expand
  37. Archimond
    Jan 6, 2021
    0
    Это единственное из дополнений после выхода которого я удалил игру спустя три недели с начала его выхода, это рекорд. Даже в дреноре было интереснее сидеть в гарнизоне. Просто в какой то момент понимаешь что мысль о запуске игры вызывает у тебя отвращение. это при том что до окончания подписки еще месяц. Во всех дополнениях были хотя бы интересные квесты на прокачке персонажа а в энд геймЭто единственное из дополнений после выхода которого я удалил игру спустя три недели с начала его выхода, это рекорд. Даже в дреноре было интереснее сидеть в гарнизоне. Просто в какой то момент понимаешь что мысль о запуске игры вызывает у тебя отвращение. это при том что до окончания подписки еще месяц. Во всех дополнениях были хотя бы интересные квесты на прокачке персонажа а в энд гейм игре начинались проблемы, тут же даже задания скучны и не интересны, была надежда на Малдраксус и Ревендрет, но она не оправдалась. В итоге для меня WOW Shadowlands стал огромным разочарованием, и я уже не верю что близзард сможет выпустить чтото стоящее, надо посмотреть еще на диабло 4, но надежды мало.… Expand
  38. Nacasatu
    Dec 15, 2020
    1
    Very shallow expansion.
    No new races, no new classes, no new battlegrounds. Time gated content, awful decision by Blizzard. They got the pvp gearing and upgrading right, almost perfect, but then ruined it by tying it behind more time gated trash AND then they also will not allow you to upgrade the Conquest gear you buy, unless you play and rank highly in their stupid and awful rated pvp    Very shallow expansion.
    No new races, no new classes, no new battlegrounds. Time gated content, awful decision by Blizzard. They got the pvp gearing and upgrading right, almost perfect, but then ruined it by tying it behind more time gated trash AND then they also will not allow you to upgrade the Conquest gear you buy, unless you play and rank highly in their stupid and awful rated pvp game mode. Terrible decision again. Now, you login, do your daily quest, and logout. That's it, once the weekly stuff is done, you've nothing else to do because of the time gating. What a ridiculous load of tripe. The rated pvp and mythic dungeons are absolutely destroyed and laughable due to the boosting and gold sellers selling services, the lfg custom tool is riddled with adverts and spammers, making it worthless. Huge hopes for this expansion but already bored with nothing to do and no way to gear because its locked behind time gated content or worse, locked behind forced game modes like rated battlegrounds which are a joke.

    Such a shame. Such a lost opportunity. Most guildmates have already just stopped playing and server is losing so many players. Blizzard seem to cater more toward streamers and the 5% who raid and run boosting mythic dungeons plus the win trading in pvp, than they do the vast majority of others players. Way to go, killing your own game with stupid decisions and lacking any real content.

    Seriously, not even one new class, race or battleground, what a load of trash this expansion is.    … Expand
  39. Tercano
    Jan 14, 2021
    1
    Плюсы:
    1. Интересный сюжет и в целом идея.
    2. Множество отсылок на давних персонажей и сюжет, возможность узнать о судьбе знакомых персонажей (не только первого плана). Минусы: 1.Утроба. Представляет из себя локацию по которой вы будете очень медленно продвигаться через постоянно агрящихся мобов и самостоятельно искать и справляться с редкими монстрами ради очень-очень маленькой    Плюсы:
    1. Интересный сюжет и в целом идея.
    2. Множество отсылок на давних персонажей и сюжет, возможность узнать о судьбе знакомых персонажей (не только первого плана).
    Минусы:
    1.Утроба. Представляет из себя локацию по которой вы будете очень медленно продвигаться через постоянно агрящихся мобов и самостоятельно искать и справляться с редкими монстрами ради очень-очень маленькой награды в виде репутации. За довольно большое количество репутации вы сможете покупать себе некоторые усиления. На деле это просто монотонная локация с огромным количеством безликих мобов которых вам нужно будет ежедневно фармить передвигаясь через все это пешком (что еще сильней растягивает и без того унылый процесс). А так же это обязательно делать на каждом вашем персонаже, потому если их у вас больше 1 то F.
    2. Торгаст. Вам предоставляют 6 обязательных для прохождения этажей, на 6 вас ждет босс, за победу над которым дают ресурсы для создания легендарок. На деле это такой же монотонный контент как и Утроба. Коридоры однообразные как впрочем и враги. Просто пройти мимо врагов к боссу за получением профита вам может и дадут, но с противников падают усиления без которых финального босса можно банально не убить и потерять море времени (а ведь он еще и получает процентное увеличение урона каждые секунд 10, так что если не убили быстро то может быть не убьете совсем). Единственным плюсом является то что проходить его нужно всего два раза в неделю на каждом персонаже.
    3. PvE. Стало бесперспективным избиением болванчиков. Контент в целом интересный, яркий, со своим челленджем, но без наград. Близзард сильно урезали шанс получения награды из рейда и м+. По сути вы можете пройти большое количество подземелий и никак не усилить персонажа.
    4. PvP. Ужасно. Вероятно на высоком уровне игры в нем и есть что-то захватывающее. Но если вы начинающий игрок, или же просто решили попробовать получить экипировку для PvE с помощью PvP то скорее всего все что вы получите это контроль на 4-6 секунд и смерть без возможности сделать хоть что-то. Полагаю единственная альтренатива - игра в пвп в заранее собранной в PvE (хаха) качественной экипировке. Все мои попытки заниматься пвп в среднем гире (190-200) заканчивались ваншотами в большинстве случаев.
    5. Новые недельные награды. В целом идея хорошая и очень удобная, возможность выбирать нужный вам лут из недельного сундука или дополнительные ролы если вам не нужно ничего из предложенного. Но возможность усиления себя лишь раз в неделю удручает.
    Итог: Shadowlands понравится тем кому интересно развитие истории вселенной Warcraft, но не понравится всем кто собирается играть в нее дальше сюжетных квестов.. Крайне не рекомендую играть если вы не готовы к огромному количеству пустого времяпровождения вне сюжета.    … Expand
  40. rmxpvl
    Jan 14, 2021
    2
    Game is unbalanced as hell, game design is bad. 0 loots the game is unrewarding and doesnt respect the player game time. You can run 3 raids and loot nothing, mythic+ are ruined loot is overnerfed. The great vault is a big joke badly designed, you can receive the same item multiple times. Idont know how this game made it through beta its unfinished and there is clearly not enough content
  41. Leshgorn
    Jan 7, 2021
    4
    В первые дни после выхода дополнения Shadowlands казался невероятно крутым - классное погружение в Утробу и Тёмные земли, графика, интересные персонажи и сюжет. Но это ощущение очень быстро прошло, а именно на моменте вступления в ковенант. Сразу возникло сомнение - к кому именно присоединиться? а что, если потрачу время и пойму, что надо было идти в другой ковенант? В итоге так и сделалВ первые дни после выхода дополнения Shadowlands казался невероятно крутым - классное погружение в Утробу и Тёмные земли, графика, интересные персонажи и сюжет. Но это ощущение очень быстро прошло, а именно на моменте вступления в ковенант. Сразу возникло сомнение - к кому именно присоединиться? а что, если потрачу время и пойму, что надо было идти в другой ковенант? В итоге так и сделал неверный выбор :(
    После ещё пары недель игры, пришло осознание, что эта самая игра стала отнимать гораздо больше времени, чем раньше, но и давать тоже стала меньше: нудные локалки стали гораздо более времязатратными, мобы стали крепче, появилась большая Утроба, где нельзя призывать транспорт и приходится бегать ножками. И отдельного внимания заслуживает Торгаст. Перед выходом дополнения, его рекламировали, как некую вечно меняющуюся локацию с отличными наградами, причём, чем выше этаж, тем лучше награда. В итоге, наград никаких нет, сама локация невероятно унылая, скучная, бесячая, прохождение ее отнимает много времени и зависит от случайно полученных абилок. И все это нужно только для прохождения сюжета, либо для создания/улучшения легендарки! Каждый раз после прохождения Торгаста возникает дикое желание выйти из игры и не заходить в неё больше никогда. После мучений с основным своим персонажем, я даже не представляю, сколько ещё нужно будет потратить нервов и времени для развития твинков. Сейчас делать этого совсем не хочется, а ведь даже в том же БФА я играл почти одновременно сразу за нескольких персонажей.
    Не знаю, как будет развиваться дополнение дальше, но на текущий момент, это для меня самое большое разочарование. Даже БФА нравился гораздо больше.    … Expand
  42. ilya1334400
    Jan 15, 2021
    0
    Если у БФА 3 бала, то тут я должен поставить 0. Геймплейно ничего не изменилось, все тоже самое что и в бфа, ничего глобально нового. Помимо этого, фарма обещали меньше, но по факту, его стало еще больше в 10 раз, для того что бы полностью одеть персонажа уходит в раза 3-5 больше времени. Раньше что бы получить максимальный профит за неделю надо было закрыть одно 15ое подземелье, теперьЕсли у БФА 3 бала, то тут я должен поставить 0. Геймплейно ничего не изменилось, все тоже самое что и в бфа, ничего глобально нового. Помимо этого, фарма обещали меньше, но по факту, его стало еще больше в 10 раз, для того что бы полностью одеть персонажа уходит в раза 3-5 больше времени. Раньше что бы получить максимальный профит за неделю надо было закрыть одно 15ое подземелье, теперь ДЕСЯТЬ. Туда же ежедневный фарм стигий, еженедельный фарм торгаста, постоянный фарм анимы. Шмота с рейдов стало в раза 2-3 меньше, убрали монетки 2ой шанс на дроп. Все что бы заставить вас дольше сидеть в этой игре, когда контента уже нет. Они решили взять системы из успешного вов классика, но не учли что если сравнивать шл с первоначальным вов классик... то это совсем другая игра, сессионка, а не твое личное приключение в огромном рпг мире. Локации стали в раз 5 меньше чем в ваниле, мобы подстраиваются под твою силу. Считаю что Близарды свернули не туда и искусственно удерживают народ в игре отсутствием шмота.… Expand
  43. Bearoo
    Aug 18, 2021
    1
    Shadowlands is a dumpster fire. You can't sugarcoat it anymore.
    I could list a lot of things that need major changes, but since Blizzard keeps ignoring feedback or straight up corrupts their player's wishes... well, dunno, if there is any point in that.
    Guess I could list the main thing why my friends and I finally quit this game (probably for good, since we don't see any changes coming,    Shadowlands is a dumpster fire. You can't sugarcoat it anymore.
    I could list a lot of things that need major changes, but since Blizzard keeps ignoring feedback or straight up corrupts their player's wishes... well, dunno, if there is any point in that.
    Guess I could list the main thing why my friends and I finally quit this game (probably for good, since we don't see any changes coming, regarding this issue).

    1 of the 2 factions in this game is almost dead playerwise. It came to this because the Devs were actively pandering to the faction that is overpopulated ever since blood elves made their entrance. Giving the small faction overweight humans and junk gnomes, while giving the overpopulated faction an adorable new fox race and a better looking version of an old race in the last expansion didn't help either. Strange, right?! The overpopulated faction had one advantage after the other, one of them= op racials among other things.

    So me and my friends too had to play the overpopulated faction for the last couple of years in order to get anything done. Even though we prefer the small faction. Yeah, that sucks. The whole faction system in wow sucks. But Blizzard simply doesn't seem to care as long as their favorite faction has the upper hand.

    Players are asking for years now for a new faction system, that would allow us to play all races and with all players but everything in this game stays stale and outdated. No place for new and innovative ideas.

    Since bfa and Shadowlands are in general bad expansions our guild on the overpopulated faction died out now too and we have no desire to search for a new one. We never felt at home in the big faction anyway and when I logg on my alts on the small faction... well, there is almost nobody left to play with. Guess I just give up on this game. The outdated faction system is just... awful for the player experience.

    I much more prefer the faction system in Final Fantsy 14, that let's us play all races and with all players. Not to mention that ff14 has way more interesting features anyway.    … Expand
  44. FRESHNESS
    Nov 28, 2020
    5
    I guess with WoW expansions in 2020 I'm looking for what new ground can possibly be broken, and it appears the answer, with the innovative concepts WoW first introduced now ageing and no longer special or unique in gaming terms, is there is nothing particularly new or exciting here.

    The zones and art direction is, as ever, first class, but the lack of innovation in general gameplay is    I guess with WoW expansions in 2020 I'm looking for what new ground can possibly be broken, and it appears the answer, with the innovative concepts WoW first introduced now ageing and no longer special or unique in gaming terms, is there is nothing particularly new or exciting here.

    The zones and art direction is, as ever, first class, but the lack of innovation in general gameplay is bitterly disappointing. They haven't even tried to disguise the fetch quests this time around, or attempted to experiment with new kinds of missions.

    It's a shame to see such a tired effort, lacking in meaningful new features, when the game was in desperate need of a shot in the arm. The afterlife setting is apt, as this expansion finds the developers seeming somewhat dead behind the eyes as they continue to struggle for justification to offer a new addon every 18 months.    … Expand
  45. Elendil11
    Nov 28, 2020
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Me: Played since just after launch and almost all the time since

    Review: As I was running through the Zones (I have seen all of them now) I was thinking "Man the sky boxes and some of the terrain is nice" but I found nothing else to remark about that was new or amazing. I cleared Torghast to layer 3 right away and while it was interesting, I do not thing there is any way it will hold my attention for a whole expac.

    Pros:
    It has wonderful artwork. Can' t find much else :/

    Cons:
    I see nothing new other than some peripherals that shouldn't have an expac based around them (i.e. Torghast and Covenants).

    There was a major revamp to the lore that has essentially wiped out a good chunk of what made the better expacs and games function. That's not a good idea.

    Bland world quests and a slightly upgraded command table are underwhelming and don't make me want to do them.

    More borrowed power systems that will be entirely useless in 2 years. This stuff doesn't feel good even when it is current, please don't do it anymore after this.

    Class redesign (I am a prot paladin) made healing myself and protecting myself an extra chore above the GCD. Now I have to spend either on SoR or WoG. That was a poor idea for blizz to institute, however i understand that is a personal issue.

    How to fix it: Not sure about the borrowed power, but they need to find a way to get players back interested in the fabric of WoW again. MANY players came to WoW because they loved Warcraft and the story telling of especially the Warcraft 3's. As WoW has moved past these stories the lore has gone outside that firm story telling. The proof of this is in Legion when we moved back into it with a great story and a tying up of a story-line akin to Wraths. It was well done and people liked that aspect far more than in the last 2-3 expacs. Place yourselves back into the un-redesigned lore that exists or come out with Warcraft 4-5 and make more good lore to work with.    … Expand
  46. LukeSR
    Nov 29, 2020
    3
    Disappointing, buggy.

    First you have to complete the linear questline/campaign to get level 60 and to unlock the covenants. The questline contains many cinematics and a lot of talking and following NPCs. When you hit level 60 and you like to level up a twink you can choose to do the same again or skip it (Threads of fate), the campaign will be marked as completed and you can already    Disappointing, buggy.

    First you have to complete the linear questline/campaign to get level 60 and to unlock the covenants. The questline contains many cinematics and a lot of talking and following NPCs.
    When you hit level 60 and you like to level up a twink you can choose to do the same again or skip it (Threads of fate), the campaign will be marked as completed and you can already choose your covenant at the start.
    Well now you can choose your first destiny for yourself. They are some Quests in every area, you can already do world quests by leveling and few bonus objectives.

    I like the idea, but not the implementation. The bonus objectives are very boring, you have to kill mobs and click on items, you will get 1-3 % for each on your progress bar, it can take up to 20 minutes to complete one and you will get ~18k EXP, thats ~5% on you progress bar.
    I tried to combine it with normal Quests, but only in a few cases the area of the bonus objectives and normal quests matches,

    The other problem that disturbs me is, that all areas in Shadowlands are full of enemys. If you want to go from A to B, there is almost no safe way, you nearly find a horde of enemys on every place and you can't avoid them. They unmount you, you kill them, you mount and after few meters you possibly get unmounted again.

    There are not many normal quests, you can see the start point of every possible questline on the map. Some of the quests are very bad designed, for example. I saw a quest on a hill, I tried to get there and had to run through a place full of enemys.
    I was unmounted few times and always had to fight against 4-8 enemys (not super easy for a non healing class) and as I get there I get a quest and had to kill 12 more of them and use a spell on the dead bodies that could go wrong and you had to kill them again. Of course you had to kill other enemys by doing this quest that were not relevant for this quest, as I finally completed the quest, I got 8k EXP (~2,5% for level progress bar) and no other quest...

    And sorry for my bad english, I had to deal with some buggy quests and decided to write the review to
    free from my anger.    … Expand
  47. Rizaun
    Nov 29, 2020
    4
    Another big disappointment.

    One of the worst parts of this expansion is that Blizzard intentionally made players weaker with the pre-patch, making old content more difficult to complete or downright impossible, expecting players to clear the new raids so that they could finally do the content that they were doing at Lv120. The leveling is pointless since you get nothing out of it, no    Another big disappointment.

    One of the worst parts of this expansion is that Blizzard intentionally made players weaker with the pre-patch, making old content more difficult to complete or downright impossible, expecting players to clear the new raids so that they could finally do the content that they were doing at Lv120. The leveling is pointless since you get nothing out of it, no new abilities or talents, it exists only to take your time and when you hit Lv60, you will be just as weak as you were at Lv50, it's the illusion of progression.

    No new class and no new race, instead they focused on improving the character creation feature and yet the new additions are barebones. Races that had a lot of options got a few more and the ones that had a few got almost nothing new that they didn't copy and paste from another race and all the new changes only bring WoW's character creation to the standards of the year 2010.

    Mediocre story but that is nothing new, Blizzard hasn't written anything good after Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. All male characters are stupid and incompetent, all women are queens and Mary Sues and Sylvanas is probably playing 10-D Chess and will be the true hero and save everyone... just like Kerrigan did in Starcraft. Blizzard's writers should take a look at how FFXIV writers create their world and characters and learn from them, they are actually good.

    World Quests take longer for no other reason than to take more of your time, just like everything else now, with the Maw not allowing you to use mounts for reasons so you have to walk everywhere, no Flight Whistle for Shadowlands areas, can't ride in many parts of Oribos, flying from one SL area into another always has to go through Oribos, etc. Everything about this expansion is designed to take as much time as possible.

    The new number of transmog appearances is laughable, there's about 8 new transmog appearances per armor type (Recolors don't count, they don't take any effort to make), with a few pieces here and there that don't belong to a particular set, but you have to choose 1 of the 4 covenant sets, leaving you with 5 choices. It's no wonder people get mad when Blizzard adds paid transmog to their store.

    Thank god we can buy the expansion, pay a sub and everything else in the Blizzard store with gold, Call of Duty operator bundles have more worth than this trash expansion. I'm only giving it a 4 because the Art and Sound teams did a good job, it's always everyone else who fails, specially the director.    … Expand
  48. Kadyr777
    Jan 25, 2021
    3
    Originally this review started out as neutral as I was having fun in the beginning, but the longer I played..the more this expansion has made me angry. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually miss BfA.

    Pros: -Solo instanced content can be played with friends! I was able to enjoy nearly everything with my wife through the story including having her in cut scenes with me, which    Originally this review started out as neutral as I was having fun in the beginning, but the longer I played..the more this expansion has made me angry. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually miss BfA.

    Pros:
    -Solo instanced content can be played with friends! I was able to enjoy nearly everything with my wife through the story including having her in cut scenes with me, which is a huge deal for me.
    -Classes feel much more fluid in comparison to BfA, even though some are performing very poorly.
    -Story can be completed without needing to enter a dungeon

    Cons:
    -The balancing of certain classes makes them unplayable and even yeeted or not invited to groups. At the time of writing this my wife's havoc Demon Hunter and my arms warrior are in a meh spot, my warrior as protection gets absolutely deleted in high keystones. Balance of classes has been slow and underwhelming two months into Shadowlands.
    -High level keystones need to be kited as a tank, that's not tanking. You must play a vengeance Demon Hunter as a tank, or a fotm DPS if you want to progress stones.
    -Some important features are locked behind MSQ (this was a bad thing about FFXIV, not a good thing Blizzard).
    -No new classes or races, allied races still haven't received the love they deserve
    -The storytelling feels unengaging to me, as somebody who loves RPGs and a great story. I was ready to just be done halfway through Ardenweald.
    -Classes that were incredibly broken and fotm especially in pvp during prepatch are still running around melting. Tuning wasn't a priority and I'm not sure how long I'll have to endure some of these broken classes until they're fixed.
    -The new main city hub is literally just a circle, two floors of a circle........
    -Torghast (a huge portion of this expansion) is a direct copy of Final Fantasy XIV's Palace of the Dead / Heaven on High.
    -Yet again, more borrowed power with a very boring, unengaging and restrictive covenant system.    … Expand
  49. sijjvravisz
    Feb 8, 2021
    1
    This is likely to tank HARD. Already, the general forum is half "I love it" and half "this is boring garbage". Usually (and yeah, I've played this game on and off for 16 years so I do know what I'm talking about white knights) the first few weeks of any expansion, the forums are a love-fest. Even WOD and BFA were received with initial glowing reviews from players and critics.

    This one?    This is likely to tank HARD. Already, the general forum is half "I love it" and half "this is boring garbage". Usually (and yeah, I've played this game on and off for 16 years so I do know what I'm talking about white knights) the first few weeks of any expansion, the forums are a love-fest. Even WOD and BFA were received with initial glowing reviews from players and critics.

    This one? Is just horrifically boring, grindy right off the bat, gated right away, linear, and poorly written. And that's it for WoW for me, too. I skipped a few expacs before because they were garbage (WOD, BFA, and MOP because the theme was just...lol no). But y'know, when I start disliking more expacs in a game that I like? It's time to drop that game for good. And I'm not alone in that regard, either.    … Expand
  50. BaeoWulf
    Nov 28, 2020
    0
    Storytelling has some plot holes. Character rewrites, and breaks previous canon frequently. Cutscenes are nice, some zones are nice. Quality of life improvements, but otherwise no features as many have commented.

    Tower + Covenant = Expansion?
  51. RedDevilnumber1
    Nov 25, 2020
    5
    This review is only of the levelling experience: I am a player of WoW since vanilla off and on, I enjoyed many aspects of all expansions. But so far, for me, this expansion has been massively underwhelming. The worst of them all so far. From the beginning, going through The Maw I had an uneasy feeling, the zones are linear and lifeless, graphically the zones are good, but where is theThis review is only of the levelling experience: I am a player of WoW since vanilla off and on, I enjoyed many aspects of all expansions. But so far, for me, this expansion has been massively underwhelming. The worst of them all so far. From the beginning, going through The Maw I had an uneasy feeling, the zones are linear and lifeless, graphically the zones are good, but where is the sense of dread, mobs that might actually challenge us? The big bad feels in no way a threat and when you squared off against him and his boys before my heartpumping (zZzZzZ) escape I was thinking, is that him...and his army...him.....??? I tried my best to read the quests and get into the story, but honestly it is convoluted, boring and lifeless. WoW used to throw in a lot of pop culture references and fun side shows to lighten the load. Gone, this is the afterlife and you better believe we are very serious about it.
    Going into Bastion left me feeling like I had stepped onto IO in Destiny 2...It is so out of place in the World of Warcraft, it feels like a bad Diablo spin off. Unfortunetly, we have lost a sense of world due to the fact that to get to each new zone requires you to return to a boring lifeless shell of a hub to travel on a glorified loading screen flight path to another isolated shell of a zone.
    A lot of players are describing the zones as beautiful, I have to disagree. The texturing is very well done, however thematically, Bastion and Ardenweald for example are just poor. God i miss the days of Orcs, Taurens, Undead, Cows and dangerous animals, now we are just running around in a furies fantasy world. (Oooh pretty and cute)
    Luckily there are still many other aspects to WoW, from PvP to Dungeons etc that keep the game something to come back to. Normally I enjoy levelling, especially as a bit of an altoholic, but the thought of doing this again is almost putting me to sleep.
    I am sure some developers and teams worked very hard on this, but unfortunately the talent seem to have left Blizzard long ago. This feels more like a tryhard attempt to push the rigid structure into the players face to say "LOOK, LOOK....we can tell stories....see I told you so....LOOK....!"    … Expand
  52. Rrohg
    Nov 27, 2020
    0
    Not feeling the forced linear path and the poor, cringe storytelling. The convoluted systems make character progression a nightmare and the covenant I wasn’t to play is a terrible option for my main spec and is terrible for the areas of the game I want to excel in. Additionally Torghast is not as impressive as I was expecting and it is inferior to many other older roguelike games. NotNot feeling the forced linear path and the poor, cringe storytelling. The convoluted systems make character progression a nightmare and the covenant I wasn’t to play is a terrible option for my main spec and is terrible for the areas of the game I want to excel in. Additionally Torghast is not as impressive as I was expecting and it is inferior to many other older roguelike games. Not looking forward to the rest of my sub time.… Expand
  53. Kath90
    Nov 29, 2020
    7
    With all the 0/10 and 10/10 I felt this review section could use some nuance.

    Zones are beautifully made and I am a big fan of the travel between zones without a load screen. Apart from Ardenweald I found the storyline engaging and enjoyable and I like how the convenant system means you have a slightly different gaming experience from leven 60 onwards. Curious to see how it continues,    With all the 0/10 and 10/10 I felt this review section could use some nuance.

    Zones are beautifully made and I am a big fan of the travel between zones without a load screen. Apart from Ardenweald I found the storyline engaging and enjoyable and I like how the convenant system means you have a slightly different gaming experience from leven 60 onwards. Curious to see how it continues, definitely enjoyed myself the last few days.

    Disclaimer i play on a relatively low populated server and hhave had zero issues logging in etc surrounding the launch.    … Expand
  54. armchairjerk
    Nov 24, 2020
    5
    Weak story telling right out the gates and head scratching plot twists. Not much is left in terms of notable characters and exciting plot devices. The "B" cast of characters is up to carry this installment for WoW into a long boring mono-toned expansion that delivers very little new content beyond zones and boring kill quests.
  55. Axeface
    Nov 26, 2020
    2
    A lesson is drudgery. It seems blizzard made a decision before starting to 'design' this expansion... "Lets waste peoples time". The drudgery here is palpable. Huge areas where you can only walk, high enemy health pools and constant overlapping patrol paths make getting around anywhere an absolute slog, they even removed the flight masters whistle... Everything is gated to the point whereA lesson is drudgery. It seems blizzard made a decision before starting to 'design' this expansion... "Lets waste peoples time". The drudgery here is palpable. Huge areas where you can only walk, high enemy health pools and constant overlapping patrol paths make getting around anywhere an absolute slog, they even removed the flight masters whistle... Everything is gated to the point where you are constantly forced to do things you dont want to like 'Torghast, the tower of drudgery' or world quests just to get to the things you actually want to do. I just cant help but feel like I'm totally wasting my time here. I give it 2 points for the nice visuals, story and world building seem cool at first but its done in a way to force you through it, its 'on rails' and makes everything feel forced, there is no free will here -you have to do the zones in the order offered for example. The prospect of leveling an alt after doing all this drudgery on my main is frankly daunting.… Expand
  56. Papaoso
    Nov 25, 2020
    0
    Played since vanilla and all expansions at their start. This is the worst, by far, it is a patch, not an expansion. It's simply a BFA storyline extension and nothing beyond that. No new classes, no new talent/spec system, just a grab in the dark to continue the franchise. It's honestly pathetic. They've introduced all these new systems that will need to be balanced each patch, but havePlayed since vanilla and all expansions at their start. This is the worst, by far, it is a patch, not an expansion. It's simply a BFA storyline extension and nothing beyond that. No new classes, no new talent/spec system, just a grab in the dark to continue the franchise. It's honestly pathetic. They've introduced all these new systems that will need to be balanced each patch, but have continued to take away player choice. Their talent system and PvP system are trash. They need a specific PvP trait and more customization of characters (aka unholy dk or frost dk MUST be dps, they can't tank despite wearing plate, monks must choose 1 of 3 specs and either heal, dps, or "tank" based off that). Activision needs a management shake up because this lack of player customization is suffocating.

    I've played several hours of this "expac" and I'm looking to request a refund and unsub already. In performing one of the new covenant campaign quests, I was brought to a Legion load screen... Legion came out 3+ years ago. Why am I in a game that utilizes load screens from over 3 years ago? This is supposed to be a polished expac release? You must be kidding me. Please re-consider if you want to get into this game/franchise. The developers are NOT listening to the player community. Risk of Rain has more replay value and player engagement than this expac/patch note trash    … Expand
  57. JainaSent
    Nov 24, 2020
    1
    Pros:
    There are many optimizations included with this expansion.
    Art (Graphics/Sound) are excellent.

    Cons:
    No Major Features
    Covenant issues present
    Unfinished classes
    Launch Issues

    If they would have delayed for another 2 months, it may have launched better? Will change rating as the expansion evolves.
  58. Kendu
    Dec 12, 2020
    0
    First review was deleted, then Metacritic edited my second review and took out: "First review was deleted." gg.

    Shadowlands is garbage. WoW has lost its magic.
    FeelsBanMan
  59. AdamM88
    Nov 26, 2020
    0
    Shadowlands is the next disgusting disappointment from Blizzard.
    If you hated BFA, you'll hate this even more.
    Firstly, all the content is time gated and weekly capped. Did you take a week vacation from work to play the new expansion? Well, too bad. Leveling up 50-60 takes 6-10 hours even if you idled by and petted at the squirrels. Spend a few more hours on the mandatory campaign    Shadowlands is the next disgusting disappointment from Blizzard.
    If you hated BFA, you'll hate this even more.

    Firstly, all the content is time gated and weekly capped.
    Did you take a week vacation from work to play the new expansion? Well, too bad. Leveling up 50-60 takes 6-10 hours even if you idled by and petted at the squirrels. Spend a few more hours on the mandatory campaign quests and whatnot, and at the start of the first day you will literally have nothing to do. I don't mean to exaggerate. You literally can't do anything that has any reward you would find useful. Once you clear the mythic dungeons (pugged it easily in ilvl120 gear), torghast and the daily covenant quests and maw quests you are looking forward to maybe 20-30 hours of gameplay on the first week, and on the following weeks you'll have about 10 hours of gameplay per week outside raiding.

    Okay, quantity is pathetic, as everything is time-gated and capped. How about the quality?
    I'm sorry to say that the quality of the game is even worse than for BFA.
    Everything is just unimaginative and boring:

    Dungeons:
    Only 8 really small dungeons with ridiculously dumb mechanics, layout, mobs, bosses. Deadmines is more complex, and many times larger than any dungeon in the expansion. This will not be fun in Mythic+.
    Then again... Why would you run dungeons? It's a waste of time. You need to do 1x +15 Mythic+ dungeon per week, which takes about 20 minutes, and you are done with all the 5man content for the week. The itemization is so bad, the rewards are so pathetic that anything more is pointless.

    Torghast:
    Oh wow, our cool new dungeon crawler roguelite, right? While the somewhat lackluster and mostly unimaginative abilities unique to this mode are fun for a while, I'm afraid this too is timegated, and the rewards are horrible. Blizzard promised us a randomized dungeon that's always different! No. It's pretty much the same run over and over again, enemies and anima powers are just randomly placed, but it gets old after a few runs, especially how the rewards are nonexistent. Once you make your legendary, you won't step into this place ever again.

    Maw:
    This is the most annoying place to grace the game for many, many years. Firstly, your presence here is again, unrewarding, and meaningless. But to add insult to injury, there is a daily cap to how much Stygia you may collect, and it is done in such a dumb and frustrating way too! Every action you take give you a certain amount of naughty points. Once it reached a level, the game will kill you and you no longer can gain Stygia.

    Classes:
    While the classes are certainly improved over BFA, most of them are still boring, clunky, unimaginative, unbalanced, not fun.

    Legendaries:
    Almost all legendaries are useless noobtraps you should never touch. The ones that you need to craft are mostly boring and unimaginative.

    Covenants:
    The system is sadly closely tied to how effective you will be in the game due to the various buffs and abilities you derive from it. Let's say you are class X. You need to pick Covenant Y, otherwise you are just garbage. Wait, wait a minute. That's only if you are tank spec... Damn it, if you want to DPS for some reason you are useless... Wait... Wait... it turns out that you need different covenant for tanking if you are tanking Mythic+ and another one if you are tanking raids... Wait, wait WAIT! Every greatly patch adjusts the strength of the covnents. **** you are screwed!

    The world:
    Is small. Most of the map you see is outside the map boundaries. The map you can set foot in is mostly empty. So take a look at the map, and maybe less than half of it is meaningful. Also, the game is designed in a way that you waste a LOT of time traveling. Blizzard thinks running on your mount is precious and fun content you are happy to pay for. The flight masters are also placed in a dumb way that you would rather run than fly.

    The story:
    While the story had some good points, most of it is boring, short, unimaginative, and is told in a really bad way.

    Now some positive points:
    The art team did a decent job. The music and the world is aesthetic, except for Maldraxxus, the second area, which is objectively ugly and awfully designed. And that's all the nice stuff I had to say about Shadowlands.    … Expand
  60. Kamui22
    Nov 24, 2020
    0
    -No new classes
    -No new races
    -Only temporary new abilities/traits to be wiped at the end of the expansion
    -Still nothing done to fix UI/server/faction problems
    -Leveling basically deleted instead of fixed.
  61. Operativ
    Nov 24, 2020
    0
    World of Warcraft, including the most recent Shadowlands expansion, is a 2004 game that is today's biggest example of an outdated game that is not underdeveloped for the amount of financial income gained by Activision Blizzard from it.

    Shadowlands does not do help much, as it is a similar experience to Legion - and while the score would have not been lower than 5/10 - the 0/10 comes for    World of Warcraft, including the most recent Shadowlands expansion, is a 2004 game that is today's biggest example of an outdated game that is not underdeveloped for the amount of financial income gained by Activision Blizzard from it.

    Shadowlands does not do help much, as it is a similar experience to Legion - and while the score would have not been lower than 5/10 - the 0/10 comes for the price that comes with this game.

    74,99€ for the "Epic" version, which includes every digital extra & 30 days of game time; and 54,99€ for most of the diigtal extras alone & 39,99€ for the base game.

    I won't even start by saying that the middle & base editions don't have the 30 days of game time. I will rather conclude, that this game does not deserve to run a buy-to-play (single-time, bigger price) combined with a pay-to-play (monthly, subscription-based payments) model.
    No game deserves that. You either run B2P or P2P. (eg. RuneScape, Guild Wars 2, The Elder Scrolls Online, etc.).

    Verdict? Average game with over the top price tag for the quality provided and amount of content that does not feel repetitive (because killing 30 NPCs over and over, or doing a mediocre instance (dungeon or raid) over and over for items to be able to farm for more items is in my opinion not enjoyable to a sane, working person).

    If you're a new player considering this game, do yourself a favour and pick another title that's not a combined B2P+P2P hoax.
    Your invested time into this game will eventually end up made irrelevant as level cap is always raised +10 (or +5) & previous items are made obsolete, no matter how hard you've "farmed" for them. Endless grind for items with the pretty excuse of "achievement obtaining" for a continuous price out of proportions that mentally 'forces' you to play to justify the value of the purchase.    … Expand
  62. roman620
    Nov 25, 2020
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Стабильность признак мастерства.Как всегда говно,игра 2010 года в 2020 году… Expand
  63. Azaiko
    Nov 26, 2020
    10
    It's pretty good. Better than past iterations. Good story, less RNG, interesting content, covenants are cool, Torghast is great.
  64. djpravda
    Nov 24, 2020
    0
    Feels like a solo game, way too much cut scenes and 0 combat. Skills and talents are meanless gear system is bad and once again they've ruined pvp. This game is no longer an mmo game. The world feels empty, servers are empty.
  65. Slob
    Nov 25, 2020
    0
    Theme 10/10
    Soundtrack 10/10
    Leveling experience 9/10 Dungeon design 9/10 Covenant design 8/10 This is based on first-impressions, time will tell if the Covenant-system will truly work in the meta in the long run or that Blizzard may need to allow players faster abillity to change it, concerning PvP and PvE balance. The Zones are the most incredible zones I have ever seen in the    Theme 10/10
    Soundtrack 10/10
    Leveling experience 9/10
    Dungeon design 9/10
    Covenant design 8/10

    This is based on first-impressions, time will tell if the Covenant-system will truly work in the meta in the long run or that Blizzard may need to allow players faster abillity to change it, concerning PvP and PvE balance.

    The Zones are the most incredible zones I have ever seen in the World of Warcraft, there's a lot of the old kill x, or loot x amount of garbage quests but they're presented in a more flashy way that breaks up the flow in a more interesting way, also there are a few more innovative quests with flashier mechanics that caught my attention such as a room in Revendreth where you need to stand in as many diminishing circles before objects fall down and you need to catch as many as quickly as you can to do the quest efficiently.

    The PvE content seems to be as good as ever, still need to do the dungeons on mythic + to get a great feel for them and the Raid has yet to come out. So far seems great!

    The expansion overall seems like a much bigger, better deal than Battle for Azeroth and I feel like Blizzard put a lot of heart and soul into the making of this! Thank you for self quarantining people, stay safe!

    I have played for about 24 hrs during the time of writing this review, and while I do not think it's fair to judge a WoW expansion after such a short time it still doesn't make this less credible than the baseless review bombing.    … Expand
  66. bookhound
    Nov 25, 2020
    1
    its pretty, but extremely boring. No engagement of the characters, could care less about them. Nothing new here, same boring grind to get useless items. The gear they are giving for rewards isnt even as good as what i have, so still wind up using previous expansions gear. I'm sorry i bought it in advance and am just glad i only paid for a month of time. I came back after a coupleits pretty, but extremely boring. No engagement of the characters, could care less about them. Nothing new here, same boring grind to get useless items. The gear they are giving for rewards isnt even as good as what i have, so still wind up using previous expansions gear. I'm sorry i bought it in advance and am just glad i only paid for a month of time. I came back after a couple months away and am not gonna bother. I would wait till they decide they want to make it fun, rather than just a chance to make some easy money. If you are thinking of coming back, dont. If you are new and thinking of joining, dont. Legion was more engaging than this, at least it gave something new.… Expand
  67. SonicFan2
    Nov 24, 2020
    0
    Doesnt look like much was added. Will give it another month and re rate. People giving it a 10.. crazy.
  68. Shander8
    Nov 24, 2020
    0
    Not many features. Compare to any expansion or classic, has lowest feature set.. just the tower and covenant. Not liking the covenant system so far.

    Launch has had issues, but not as bad as most expansions.
  69. Winston2
    Nov 25, 2020
    0
    Feels like BFA all over again. This expansion has the lowest hype, and quickest fallout. Wish there was a new class.
  70. Vikhus
    Nov 27, 2020
    10
    Jajaja, saw many 0 , from haters, if dont like wow, plz leave, To me is the best expansion since BC and WOTLK, the Art and gameplay on all zones are priceless, I am playing Blizzard games since Starcraft launch, and Hope Blizz stay with us for a long time.
  71. iammrstinky
    Nov 25, 2020
    1
    so ive played all expansions where from cactalysm it went down the drain more and more, and this expansion is just another blizzard cash grab. i actually needed support a few days before the release waited for over 24 hours on a simple answer for a ticket and never got it. i dont know how the end game is but leveling until 60 is just an other grind with stupid quests so far and a very badso ive played all expansions where from cactalysm it went down the drain more and more, and this expansion is just another blizzard cash grab. i actually needed support a few days before the release waited for over 24 hours on a simple answer for a ticket and never got it. i dont know how the end game is but leveling until 60 is just an other grind with stupid quests so far and a very bad story. If you think of coming back i would reconsider spending my money on this release...… Expand
  72. Hildegard
    Nov 25, 2020
    0
    Too Sleepy.
    Too boring.
    is this Diablo 3?
    It's just a sleeping pill
    Zzzzzzz.....
  73. SolarSun
    Nov 24, 2020
    0
    Not sure if this game is worth the price that is being charged. They need to finish the classes also.
  74. BlackRed1
    Nov 26, 2020
    9
    Amazing gameplay, graphics and lore. It is great expansion after boring Battle for Azeroth. I love new covenant system, it is very rewardable. Game for a long hours!
  75. Irapuruj
    Nov 25, 2020
    0
    The reason why I just hate this game is because of how they are stepping away from the original gameplay that we all once loved. The thing is, in dungeons and open world content you get these unique abilities which is ok but you have to do all of the quest in order to unlock more in the game. So you cannot dungeon grind your way to max level or do battlegrounds, you have to QUEST. YouThe reason why I just hate this game is because of how they are stepping away from the original gameplay that we all once loved. The thing is, in dungeons and open world content you get these unique abilities which is ok but you have to do all of the quest in order to unlock more in the game. So you cannot dungeon grind your way to max level or do battlegrounds, you have to QUEST. You cannot just get to level 60 how you want, its just too much.… Expand
  76. Kunray
    Nov 27, 2020
    8
    Recommend this game.
    The game itself looks pretty nice.
    Have some fun (: 8/10 This Shadowlands
  77. kind0528
    Nov 24, 2020
    10
    Fantastic leveling. In my opinion, This Shadowlands is more impressive than Legion. Beautiful and Awesome. I want to be job seeker. BEAT BFA !!!!
  78. WesleySnipes
    Nov 25, 2020
    2
    Gather 15 of these, kill 20 of these, rinse and repeat. This expansion really shows a dark future for the World of Warcraft.
  79. WilsonX
    Nov 25, 2020
    0
    Game has much to improve on. Some zones are nice, some are boring. No new class or major feature. Didnt research game ahead of time, was my mistake.
  80. Vicious23
    Nov 27, 2020
    10
    Sicuramente meglio di bfa. Le ambientazioni sono bellissime e stavolta avremo qualcosa in più da fare.
  81. audehdqls
    Nov 25, 2020
    0
    this game is trash it's bfa season 2. why we play this game again? it very horrible
  82. Lawc
    Nov 28, 2020
    0
    trash expansion wow will never be as good as it was in vanilla/BC/WOTLK. Classes are way too unbalanced and the overall content is just too boring
  83. marcosbravo1991
    Nov 25, 2020
    8
    More appealing than BFA at least, I think it will evolve in a good expansion with incoming patches, feels good already.
  84. Taronn93
    Nov 30, 2020
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. 10/10 expansion, everything is great, everything feels like Blizzard listened to 4 years of feedback and made this expansion accordingly, come at me haters… Expand
  85. Anatar90
    Jan 24, 2021
    0
    As every Blizzard product it is not a game it is a service for milking their playerbase. No fun, no rewards, extrimly toxic community of funboys. There are many good MMO's on the market with their own pros and cons but definitly better than WoW: Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy XIV, ESO. Beware of Blizzard false marketing machine!
  86. Mad2k
    Jan 15, 2021
    0
    The worst expansion for PVP. Check pvp vendors yourself and calculate how much time (how many bgs won) it will take. A 200 lvl gear costs 525 (Back), 700 (Belt), 875 (Chest), 1800 (Two-handed weapon). A won bg gives you 8, a won epic bg gives you 15. Hahaha. Bye, bye Blizzard, scam company, they just want to keep blind players subscribed. Infinite grind = infinite subscription. WoW playersThe worst expansion for PVP. Check pvp vendors yourself and calculate how much time (how many bgs won) it will take. A 200 lvl gear costs 525 (Back), 700 (Belt), 875 (Chest), 1800 (Two-handed weapon). A won bg gives you 8, a won epic bg gives you 15. Hahaha. Bye, bye Blizzard, scam company, they just want to keep blind players subscribed. Infinite grind = infinite subscription. WoW players are junkies not realizing that there are better games and non-virtual occupations.… Expand
  87. scabior1359
    Jan 25, 2021
    3
    As a World of Warcraft fanatic, it pains me to say how much I dislike this expansion. The storytelling is bad, the covenants are bad, the class balance is bad in both pvp and pve, the rewards for playing are non-existent. Very disappointed, for all of Battle for Azeroth's problems, it had noticeably more polish than Shadowlands. I hope that many of these problems will be fixed in the 9.1As a World of Warcraft fanatic, it pains me to say how much I dislike this expansion. The storytelling is bad, the covenants are bad, the class balance is bad in both pvp and pve, the rewards for playing are non-existent. Very disappointed, for all of Battle for Azeroth's problems, it had noticeably more polish than Shadowlands. I hope that many of these problems will be fixed in the 9.1 patch because as of right now I am unsubscribing.… Expand
  88. Babe1973
    Dec 16, 2020
    0
    If you enjoy a second job with no compensation, this is your game. The rewards are non existent and it’s all just chores in a daily basis. The lead designer clearly is in over his head. This game was the golden standard once. Now it’s a labor farm.
  89. Schuld
    Jan 25, 2021
    1
    i dont know where to start...

    First Positve: -great Artwork -good looking Maps -The Classes have slightly more skills Neutral: -no real Cinematics anymore more Artworks (can be Pro and Con) -Levelsquish so the leveling doesnt take an eternity -you can take any old expansion to level Cons: -MANY Bugs, played 2 weeks and encounterd so many not working quests/perks/ or    i dont know where to start...

    First

    Positve:
    -great Artwork
    -good looking Maps
    -The Classes have slightly more skills

    Neutral:
    -no real Cinematics anymore more Artworks (can be Pro and Con)
    -Levelsquish so the leveling doesnt take an eternity
    -you can take any old expansion to level

    Cons:
    -MANY Bugs,
    played 2 weeks and encounterd so many not working quests/perks/ or even dungeons. Some dungeons are impossible to do because the scaling hurts so much. Best moment Maurodon Boss Immorthal hitting the tank with 3 hits out of existence. Tank 7k HP Boss 250k HP Hits with 3 K non crits and has a nondispellable Buff with 60% atk spd. GG

    -Scaling overall ->
    The strongest you are on lvl 1-10 after that with each level up you will get weaker. Only the numbers change up nothing more. Monsters take longer/more skills to kill them and so on. When you hit level 60 in continues the HP/DMG/Armor of the enemies increase as you gear up... thats a bad joke.after Itemlevel 170+ you slowy become stronger then the HP/armor stops but the dmg increases still. i did several testing and its frustrating... the best part i was rogue lvl 28 my finisher did 250 dmg then i leveld up and the same skill did now 246.
    lv28 - 250 dmg
    lv29 - 244 dmg
    ye.... makes sense to me
    Playing as heal is the same. your HP 5k - Tank HP 900, you heal him for a 4,5k healkrit and he only gets 10% hp back. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

    -extremly time consuming (no rewards for what you are doing)

    -all equipment and rewards are the same set. only slightly diffrent colour
    Mainquest for the covenant give you 197 EQ in Gold/Silver, you rewards for several activities are the same set without setefffect without stats onyl "cosmetic" in teh same fuking colour, AND only you can wear it in the transmog, not your twink characters.

    -no balance in classes and in PVE/PVP
    so really non at all. getting deleted by the convenant skills..
    DH onehits you with the fae covenant skill. He turns blue and spins and runs you over. yes you get killed by sonic the hedgehog

    you wanna play pvp? cool start with playing pve do all the quest and get your free 197 PVE gear and if you wanna kill everything then do raiding and mythic+

    then you can start with the pvp 158 gear... ye right you start with 158. but dont worry you can upgrade it!
    only 1k-5k Honor per part and upgrade

    first upgrade
    PVP: 1000 Honor
    PVE: 50 Anima
    Now the best part is this. World quests gives you 50 Honor and 70 Anima.

    -all new zones have "mini"loadscreen not a single zone is connected to each other.
    you can NOT run/jump/fly or swim to another zone. "Lore" yes yes i know.

    -the new job system. getting old expansion smithing up? no chance

    you can feel the greed in the game. They want you to subs for a long time... and i have the feeling they dont even try to listen or fix things anymore.
    now im tired and the game will be deleted after the test playtime. "I am not angry with you, i only sad that you lost your way", Blizzard/Activision. - Uncle Iroh    … Expand
  90. velyref
    Feb 5, 2021
    3
    Nearly every aspect of this expansion is disappointing. Story narrative is weak. No new gameplay mechanics, it is the same expansion we've seen like 4 times already?

    High-level content is disastrously boring: they make you do more quests after you've done a **** ton of them already. Also weekly cooldown for the story questline is ridiculous. World quests are boring. Dungeons are    Nearly every aspect of this expansion is disappointing. Story narrative is weak. No new gameplay mechanics, it is the same expansion we've seen like 4 times already?

    High-level content is disastrously boring: they make you do more quests after you've done a **** ton of them already. Also weekly cooldown for the story questline is ridiculous.

    World quests are boring. Dungeons are boring. Artwork is boring. Game design is boring. The game IS BORING.    … Expand
  91. kalimarah
    Feb 7, 2021
    3
    I am a jaded, but devoted WoW player. Shadowlands, simply put is not one of their better expansions. Gameplay has been discuss extensively by other reviews, so I'll mention somethign different: metaphysics.

    Normally, you don't need to pay much attention to game metaphysics. However, if you are going to create an expansion about the afterlife, I would expect at minimum a committee    I am a jaded, but devoted WoW player. Shadowlands, simply put is not one of their better expansions. Gameplay has been discuss extensively by other reviews, so I'll mention somethign different: metaphysics.

    Normally, you don't need to pay much attention to game metaphysics. However, if you are going to create an expansion about the afterlife, I would expect at minimum a committee meeting to decide how the afterlife works. Is the Shadowlands where dead people's souls go for eternity, like in Christian and Greek mythos? Can the dead die in the Shadowlands? What happens if they die? If they are dead already, shouldn't they just reform after a while? If not and they truly disipate into nothing, then it is not really the land of the dead - its a second life. Can you harvest them for anima? I have no idea what the Shadowlands is supposed to be. I'm pretty sure the developers don't either.

    Then there is anima. In Oribos, we are told deserving souls used to go to their rightful place (ala Christian mythos), but then something bad happened and now all souls go to the Maw. Was a developer watching, "The Good Place"? Then we find out there is an anima drought. A what? Turns out the entire afterlife is powered by the souls of dead people. When a buddy of yours dies on Azeroth, they go through the death funnel and are ground-up into anima. Soulent Green is people!

    I hate to say this, but traveling the zones hearing each complain about their anima drought left a bad taste in my mouth. The next 10 levels you just run from one place to another watching it fall apart, because they don't have enough ground-up souls to power their magic. How is this different than the warlock Guldan using souls for his foul magics? I kept thinking that this whole place is evil and needs to be burned to the ground. I'm pretty sure this not what the developers intended, but they should have taken a moment to think through their world.    … Expand
  92. Grizzler
    Jan 10, 2021
    0
    A boring slog introducing nothing new. Using cut and paste assets its like they made an entire game from left over scraps. Not to mention it is beyond frustratingly slow. They want your subs and to play as little as possible. Avoid it even on sale.
  93. Yigzatoth
    Dec 5, 2020
    0
    Quests are nothing new or engaging, zones are interesting but they also feel quite small, in terms of content Torghast and the Maw seem to me gated to prevent a fast content drought.
    The price tag and content available at launch for a pay to play game is disappointing and too expensive.
    There are a lot of other things that don't work for me, but that would be a essay instead of a small    Quests are nothing new or engaging, zones are interesting but they also feel quite small, in terms of content Torghast and the Maw seem to me gated to prevent a fast content drought.
    The price tag and content available at launch for a pay to play game is disappointing and too expensive.
    There are a lot of other things that don't work for me, but that would be a essay instead of a small review.
    All in all I think its time for the game director (Ion Hazzikostas) to move or quit video game industry. Even with Legion being a average expansion, WoD and BfA should have got him fired, let alone allow him to make a 4th expansion under his direction.    … Expand
  94. Brucecampbell
    Dec 15, 2020
    2
    The professional reviews and influencers are LYING to you!
    So you are wondering is it a good time to come back to WoW. Can you play with friends again and enjoy the game, maybe do some battlegrounds, wpvp and some raiding? The answer is a firm NO. This is not a MMO anymore, it's a few failed esports that target mentally ill people who live with a caregiver to use as slave labor. They sell    The professional reviews and influencers are LYING to you!
    So you are wondering is it a good time to come back to WoW. Can you play with friends again and enjoy the game, maybe do some battlegrounds, wpvp and some raiding? The answer is a firm NO. This is not a MMO anymore, it's a few failed esports that target mentally ill people who live with a caregiver to use as slave labor. They sell carries and boosts through content for gear and mounts, which people buy with tokens. Those jobless people turn the gold into RL money against the TOS to fund their gameplay or to fuel an endless number of microtranactions to race change, class change depending on what is flavor of the month for raids too tightly tuned.

    In old WoW anyone could raid and you could bring family or friends. The game was time and effort gated to a point and not trying to be a failed esport. WoW still wants you to invest that time but the rewards differ depending on how many friends you want to leave behind, how toxic the community you are willing to put up with and the debt you are willing to incur as you lose your job to mythic raid or be a high end arena player where you will need a Razer Naga for arena focus macros that is a paperweight on your desk in everything but WoW.

    When Cata brought on esport difficulty for raids Blizzard created systems so that players who didn't want to engage in that could still engage in other aspects of the game and have fun. This was through pvp gear with pvp stats, scaling or instanced pvp limiting item level. Those systems are now all gone to push token sales and min/mx microtransactions. The influencers tell you this is a good thing because without the failed esports they lose content and prestige, but the influeners are an increasingly shrinking, insular bubble of delusion.

    If you want to know just how bad the disparity is to fund MT's, daily quests and initial pvp gear that you grind give item level 150. Heroics gives 180. Unranked pvp gear 200 that takes months to get and it needs to be supplemented by raiding gear. Normal raiding which is about the same as old WoW pre cata is 200. Heroic is like 220. Mythic 230. Mythic + which is a timed dungeon event with the most toxic player base in the world is like 213. This is in just the first tier of raiding and you already have an insane gear disparity where you will get steamrolled in PvP and be locked out of Mythic + because of gear and raider io score, even if that is the mode you are interested in.

    In addition to a gear treadwell that never ends, allows no breaks and allows no time to help friends learn how to even get to at least mythic plus difficulty, you also have an endless amount of systems you have to grind to get more power levels. Keep in mind if you want to Mythic raid you are REQUIRED to have geared alts as they do sales (carries through Heroic and Mythic) non stop to fund their gameplay and mythic raiding is so tightly tuned that it requires you to play flavor of the month in the raid just to clear it.

    Summary. Blizzard expects 99 percent of the player base to spend as much time gearing characters as the 1 percent while having gear that is MUCH worse unless they engage in the failed esports or purchase carries to keep their item level up. This worse gear means you can't even engage and have fun in any PvP. This is the only MMO where you are required to leave friends and family and loved ones behind to progress, WHICH WERE THE CORE OF GOOD GUILDS IN THE PAST. You now play with a revolving door of people who get burnt out, who are not friends and who who really don't even like playing with eachother. The ranked PVP and mythic communities in this game are among the most toxic in video game history. This is the worst WoW has ever been by far, while the art and animations is probably at an all time high to sell MT's and mounts to naive people or people who just want to play dress up Barbie.

    As a MMO this game deserves the 2 I am giving it. It fails in every single aspect as a MMO, is everything bad about game publisher greed and modern MMO's wrapped into 1 package and the 2 is only because it's BAD as a single player RPG for the story, but at least they put some effort there by ripping off Ori and the Blind Forest for the one zone that is in any way interesting. I feel bad for the artists at Blizzard because they are the only people earning a paycheck or that haven't sold out to Bobby Kotick now the real CEO of Blizzard was pushed out.    … Expand
  95. Tsirche
    Jan 7, 2021
    0
    Leveling System: not good, too long and repetitive quests
    Instances: good, well balanced amount of trashes and bosses, nice fights, m+ system is cool again
    Raids: No. Just no. Don't do it. terrible Alts: NOT alt friendly. The main feature (Torghast tower) is a JOKE. Long, boring (sorry, BORING) and you have to do it twice a week (or more) with all your chars. Possibly the second worst    Leveling System: not good, too long and repetitive quests
    Instances: good, well balanced amount of trashes and bosses, nice fights, m+ system is cool again
    Raids: No. Just no. Don't do it. terrible
    Alts: NOT alt friendly.
    The main feature (Torghast tower) is a JOKE. Long, boring (sorry, BORING) and you have to do it twice a week (or more) with all your chars.
    Possibly the second worst expansion after BfA.    … Expand
  96. Ballsy
    Dec 13, 2020
    1
    DO NOT waste your money. Ive been playing since 2004 and this expansion is by far the worst. On top of the usual bugs, the gameplay is boring and a considerable time suck. You put in a lot of work for very minimal rewards. Most of the new features are confusing. The dungeons leave a lot to be desired. On top of this, the WoW community in game are unhelpful, childish and elitist. BUYDO NOT waste your money. Ive been playing since 2004 and this expansion is by far the worst. On top of the usual bugs, the gameplay is boring and a considerable time suck. You put in a lot of work for very minimal rewards. Most of the new features are confusing. The dungeons leave a lot to be desired. On top of this, the WoW community in game are unhelpful, childish and elitist. BUY SOMETHING ELSE!… Expand
  97. Zpaa
    Dec 13, 2020
    1
    I played all previous expansions, been playing since vanilla. On every expansion I came back to check it out, but since the last few I just cant get my self to stick around very long. This time I had high hopes, since Classic was such a huge success, I figured blizzard learned that people did not want a cakewalk for a leveling experience. But it still is :( My gear was super dated, butI played all previous expansions, been playing since vanilla. On every expansion I came back to check it out, but since the last few I just cant get my self to stick around very long. This time I had high hopes, since Classic was such a huge success, I figured blizzard learned that people did not want a cakewalk for a leveling experience. But it still is :( My gear was super dated, but still I had no problem pulling everything at the same time and felt like a god. I kinda like the focus on the story telling, but I just which the world would feel more dangerous. There is just no challenge in leveling anymore. Its just something you have to put yourself through to get to max level. Then probably grind a lot of easy stuff, to finally get to participate in a last couple of really hard things you can do in WoW these days.
    After I unlocked the first dungeon, I used the dungeon finder to do it, got into a group, they killed the first boss (barely, only 1 guy survived). I though, ow cool, we might actually need to step it up to clear this! But nothing happened in chat, no one said a word, ran on, wiped on trash and left the party instantly after the first wipe... I was left speechless. This would not happen in Classic. I did not finish my playthrough, because clearly, some fundamental stuff that went downhill since vanilla, are still just as broken as the ever were. No need for community. No challenge in leveling or walking out in the world. No commitment to dungeons. I feel really disappointed. Specially since Classic showed how these things are fixed. or rather, were not broken yet... But since I know blizzard is not crazy, they probably intended it to be this way :(    … Expand
  98. TheSpookMeister
    Mar 9, 2021
    3
    Beautiful.

    Tedious. From the (unskippable) almost hour-long intro to the constant NPCs commenting on everything as they stand on what you're trying to loot, it's a slog. World Quests now take 10-20 minutes and no flight master's whistle. The story is cool. But making the option to level without the story take much longer is not. You have to do EVERYTHING (Covenant, Torghast,    Beautiful.

    Tedious.

    From the (unskippable) almost hour-long intro to the constant NPCs commenting on everything as they stand on what you're trying to loot, it's a slog. World Quests now take 10-20 minutes and no flight master's whistle. The story is cool. But making the option to level without the story take much longer is not.

    You have to do EVERYTHING (Covenant, Torghast, Mythic+, and World Quests) to progress.

    CHORES.

    Torghast is awesome. The rewards are not.

    Don't even know what to say about dungeons, since almost every group I've been in has fallen apart after the first boss (since that's where the most desirable loot drops come from). Gear drops are almost nonexistant. Got two upgrades in World Quests the first day, nothing else for a month.

    Stepping away at least until I see what they're doing with 9.1.    … Expand
  99. yicori7525
    Dec 31, 2020
    0
    Whoever invented the maw should be hunted down, and killed brutally IRL with no remorse or mercy.
  100. almightythor
    Jan 8, 2021
    3
    Personally, very disappointed with the expansion.
    The artwork is great however the gameplay feels dull and playing has become a chore, were every reset you have a mental check list of things you need to get done before the next reset, once you've completed the content you just sit there twiddling your thumbs for the rest of the week or if you have alts, do the same thing on them.    Personally, very disappointed with the expansion.
    The artwork is great however the gameplay feels dull and playing has become a chore, were every reset you have a mental check list of things you need to get done before the next reset, once you've completed the content you just sit there twiddling your thumbs for the rest of the week or if you have alts, do the same thing on them.

    Everything is just repetition and honestly for me, it took all the fun out of the game. Once you have ran the content, nothing feels exciting that you would want to do it again such as the dungeons etc

    Leveling through the main story line is alright, expect for the fact that the game feels like you have no choice in terms of which zones to go to and the quests to do. Threads of fate is absolutely horrible    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

35
#35 Best PC Game of 2020
10
#10 Most Discussed PC Game of 2020

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
83

Generally favorable reviews - based on 32 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 31 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 32
  3. Negative: 0 out of 32
  1. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Apr 12, 2021
    80
    Blizzard finally comes with an alt-friendly expansion that brings back the best features of the previous ones. The patch that WoW desperately needed. [Issue#309]
  2. Shacknews
    Jan 29, 2021
    90
    World of Warcraft: Shadowlands certainly manages to capture the same feelings we’ve had since first started playing the game. The leveling experience overhaul, constant sense of progress with rewards, and new campaign stories make Shadowlands a must-have for any avid player.
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  3. GamingTrend
    Jan 27, 2021
    90
    World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is a return to greatness for the franchise. The content is both accessible and fun for all types of players, and the story actually makes you feel like everything you’re doing is helping to save the Shadowlands. Torghast is one of the best features ever added and makes each experience unique and fun. While there are some issues which can slow down the time it takes to get everything you want, the journey there is still enjoyable.
    Read full review
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