Last
Wednesday the pre-patch to WoW Shadowlands hit and changed
everything. Well, most things anyway. The big level squish hit,
dividing character levels with 2.4, the new starting zone Exile's
Reach is here, plenty of new character customization options and
more.
Some
things are still very much missing however, but I really do think
they'll be added later. Some of the advertised customization options
were not implemented, like being able to choose straight backed
trolls and orcs and a few other quality of life things are still
missing. Time will tell if and when they'll be added later.
Blizzard
did say that leveling your characters will be faster than before, and
they were not kidding. At least to me it doesn't really feel that
fast, but that is only because my brain doesn't yet understand what
the new levels mean. A level 10 is 24 in the old system and a 25 is
60 in the old way. I got my new warrior to 25 in two evenings. It
used to take months to get to 60, not two evenings! So yeah, you
level up crazy fast, believe me.
I had
expected some server issues and Blizzard did not disappoint. On both
Wednesday and Thursday evenings it was almost impossible to log in,
the queues were that bad, and when the authentication servers got
full you got booted just as you were about to log in. Sit in queue,
check. Load times, check. Get in, nope – out you go!
These
issues are now solved by and large, it just amazes me that after 16
years, Blizzard still hasn't learned to avoid this. Back in '04 it
was understandable. Blizzard were new at the whole mmorpg thing,
server technology was still pretty raw, there were no where near as
many IT-techs as there are now, but still for some reason, the
servers seem to be held together with bubblegum and scotch tape.
There is
one major thing I want to bring up. For quite a while now, Blizzard
has pushed the whole Exile's Reach and straight to Battle for Azeroth
(previous expansion) thing. New players don't even get a choice. New
and free players must do the Exile's Reach area and then straight to
BfA, but I can't see how they are going to make it there.
I sent a
level 10 to Kul Tiras, the Alliance part of BfA, and was shocked to
find that everything the local vendors sell is level 45! All the
food, the potions, everything you could perhaps craft is 45. So
unless you play a class that can heal, you are utterly screwed in
BfA. You can only equip quest rewards and what happens to drop as
loot and you get 0% healing. I had to relog to a character in another
part of the game in order to go buy food, which I could send over to
my “stranded” alt.
I get
Blizzards idea that this is a good story line for new players, and at
least Kul Tiras is incredibly pretty and atmospheric, but why have
they left everything at the old top levels? This goes for all other
expansion areas as well, but the discrepancy between your character
and the local consumables isn't that big, and you can choose where to
go. You can get supplies elsewhere as long as you are not new.
Blizzard, fix this, please!
It may
seem that I'm incredibly negative towards the new changes, but I'm
not. It really is a lot of fun and the new systems will be good, when
they're properly done. But that's enough rambling for now. Join me
again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!
