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Posted October 24, 2020 by Yuri Mangahas in Gaming
 
 

Everything You Need to Know about World of Warcraft: Shadowlands


The much-anticipated next World of Warcraft expansion, Shadowlands, has been delayed. Shadowlands was set to launch quite a while ago, but that’s only happening next week. However, it’s not all bad news. If you’re dying to experience an Azerothian afterlife, then you won’t have to wait much longer. While the expansion won’t release on time as was intended, Blizzard has confirmed that it will still release the expansion later in the month.

Surprise Delay

Many people were surprised by this delay, believing that Activision Blizzard had the situation under control. It was announced earlier that the Shadowlands pre-patch would be split into two parts, giving them extra time to iron out issues. However, this clearly wasn’t enough, and the developers believe they need more time to develop the game.

The pre-patch has gone live on October 13. We’ll get story content, the leveling revamp, scourge invasion, and the Exile’s Reach starting zone in the pre-patch. For those that missed it, this expansion is massively revamping the leveling system and introducing a level squish. Max level characters (now level 120) will be squished back down to level 50, ten levels below the original game’s max level. Leveling is scaled, so if you’re not level 120, you will be scaled to a level 1-50, depending on your level before the squish. If you want a whole suite of level 50s in Shadowlands, then now might be a good time to buy World of Warcraft boosting services.

Why is Shadowlands Being Delayed?

Put simply, it’s littered with bugs. During beta testing, players alerted developers to a litany of bugs in the game. Some of these bugs are not critical or somewhat superficial, but others are downright game-breaking. Of course, the purpose of beta testing is to highlight bugs and fix them, but Shadowlands seems to be overwhelmed with issues big and small. Developers felt that they needed more time to fix the bugs and didn’t want to rush the expansion out unfinished.

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Anyone who has played the beta recently will know that the game isn’t where it should be. There are still significant issues with class balance, power systems, and some frankly weird bugs popping up all over the place. For example, some players have reported Picasso-esque faces on the character creation screen. The pictures are genuinely nightmare fuel.

Covenant abilities aren’t working correctly, and there are issues in several zones. The Maw zone has had no iterations since it was first released in beta. Players can’t use mounts, and it still feels entirely unfinished. Other beta players have reported broken Skyboxes in the new Oribos zone. Players have been left mostly unaware of how character progression will work and what it will look like in Shadowlands.

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Leveling is another issue. The flow of leveling in the beta is confusing, and the XP rates are still unclear. Players report that they need to hit a minimum level before they can progress to the next zone. However, they have also said that completing objectives in many zones doesn’t give them enough XP to reach that next level requirement. Players report that the scaling isn’t working for quests, with many quests turning green if they accidentally miss them. This then means they can’t get enough XP from these quests when they do them at a later date. Players have resorted to using Warmode to boost their XP.

When Will Shadowland Be Released?

Activision-Blizzard has put forward the release date as October 27th, 2020. Remember, everyone at max level currently will be squished to level 50. However, the max level in Shadowlands is level 60. This means that players will have ten levels of new content to play through before stepping foot in the latest raids. This could buy Blizzard a bit of time to still release the game but hold back on some end-game content until January.

The Delay is a Good Thing!

Although this delay is frustrating, it’s ultimately a good thing for the game. It shows that Activision-Blizzard is committed to deploying a high-quality game that players can enjoy without issue, straight from launch.

If you’re excited about this disruptive expansion but haven’t played WoW for a while, then don’t worry, you don’t have to start from scratch. You can buy WoW accounts online from Eldorado.


Yuri Mangahas

 
Yuri is magnanimously juggling between two managerial jobs: A technical manager position for an advertising/copy-writing company, and an associate editorial position for a fashion and lifestyle magazine. Nevertheless, he still finds time taking photos and seeking for geek nirvana.