World of Warcraft: Shadowlands may be the jolt of life I have to go back to

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• World of Warcraft: Shadowlands may be the jolt of life I have to go back to

At this point, World of Warcraft has been a part of my life for about 12 years. It's a lot less than some people who, you know, have been playing the game since its release, people who have an opinion on vanilla. However, even though I'm a little Wrath baby, I play the game enough to need big enough breaks and also to have a strong enough nostalgia for the "good old days". It's no secret that Battle For Azeroth has stirred up differing opinions over the last couple of years, and I'm certainly one of the people who has become exhausted by the relentless need to launch Island Expeditions every week to maximize my artifact power if I wanted to create game content. high-end end game. But when the initial trailer dropped and showed Sylvanas absolutely destroying the Lich King, I have to admit my interest was piqued. However, in the time since then, I've succumbed to Final Fantasy XIV, and the Shadowlands' allure has begun to fade. Until there are vampires.

Unfortunately, these are the only tentacles in the shade to date (Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

I do it for aesthetics

I really like the vampire aesthetic, probably because I watched a lot of movies as a kid. He knew in advance that areas in the Shadowlands region would have new factions called alliances and that the Venthyr alliance would take on a vampiric aesthetic. But it was so abstract when I found out that "the gothic vampire crew" didn't really sign up for me the way it should. However, when World of Warcraft Game Director Ion Hazzikostas released a developer update for World of Warcraft Shadowlands, he introduced some of the unique gameplay mechanics that members of each alliance can take advantage of. During his stay in World of Warcraft Shadowlands, he will gain fame for restoring his chosen alliance to his former position, as he will discover that the weather has not been kind to any of them.

Shadowlands' concept art is pretty metal (Image Credit: Blizzard Entertainment) This means you'll unlock new abilities, new locations, quests, and more, keeping people coming back again and again. But that doesn't really interest me. Instead, Ion Hazzikostas also spoke of the Pact shrines, claiming that each Pact has its own unique characteristic. For Venthyr, the alliance I almost certainly subscribe to, you have access to the Ember Court, where you can throw a party. Gothic vampire parties are now a part of World of Warcraft, all of them, finally. Don't worry if it's not something you like, you won't be forced to do it. As Hazzikostas himself says "you're not going to beat The Jailer by throwing the toughest party in the Shadowlands", but I'll definitely try. And in the back of my head, I know that unnecessary side activities like this never get the amount of veneer that, say, dungeons, raids, or even world quests. But hearing them described was certainly enough to get my attention again.

Make this metal extremely (Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

Vampire - Vulpera for the ladder (Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

Go forward

Right after the Shadowlands developer update, I got access to a World of Warcraft private server where I could play some endgame content, just as you unlock the Venthyr alliance in Revendreth. As you can probably tell, I was kind of excited to get started and see the scary content for myself. When I logged in, I was in their fortress. I can't tell you what brought me to the castle in the story, or even what the quests said. I went through all the quest text and omitted the placeholder scenes, because when I experience the Shadowlands story, I want to experience it in all its glory, even if much of it has already happened. been spoiled by, well, playing it. But it is neither here nor there, we are talking about aesthetics and gameplay here. The three-story castle looked amazing, and instead of going up stairs, there were these mirror-like gothic portals that you take through to teleport to different parts of the area. And in this castle? Giant vampires everywhere. And when I say gigantic, I mean gigantic. There was even a female vampire that was twice the size of my blood elf. I'm sold. But not everything is rosy. Once you leave the castle, navigate through the tutorials to unlock Soulbinds and gain unique abilities through quests, you should start searching Revendreth. And getting around this area is a bit of a pain, especially since I didn't have to pass the level to learn the ropes. The area has this really impressive Transylvanian atmosphere, with giant castles jutting out from the landscape. However, as anyone who has played a new WoW expansion since Warlords of Draenor can probably guess: you can't fly. This is usually something I can get when starting a new expansion, as it forces you to know an area, rather than letting you fly all over it as soon as you hit the level cap. But, this area is clearly designed with flying in mind. Time will tell whether or not it'll be a problem when I inevitably throw hundreds of hours into the expansion when it releases, but when I was just trying to embark on a global quest, it wasn't great. moment. Image 1 of 3

(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment) Image 2 of 3

(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment) Image 3 of 3

(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

Anyway, I'm still excited

Make no mistake: while my frustration with the layout of the area stung, it wasn't really enough to pull me out of the experience. Especially once I remembered that he was a mage and could slow down the fall from the top of giant castles to travel across the landscape, my experience was greatly improved. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait until the extension is available to play more, and who knows when that will be. Going back to this update from the developers of Shadowlands, the first raid, Castle Nathria is this giant gothic castle where you can take on Denathrius, the king of Venthyr who allied himself with The Jailer. I haven't seen any of this raid, but every part of the description of him looks amazing. At the same time, Battle For Azeroth burned me a bit, and it's going to be a long internal battle to convince me to devote my time to Shadowlands, let alone my money. However, it would be hard to say that everything I've seen and experienced in Shadowlands hasn't sold me at least a little bit. Now the real test is to see if the excitement will continue until the release of the extension and if I just have to go through another extension for the game that made me a PC gamer to begin with, there are so many years. Also, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands can be ray traced, so my inner hardware geek won't be able to stay away anyway.