I keep wanting to write this post and I keep backing off because I really don't know how I feel about Shadowlands. It's been a very confusing time for me in WoW. It's end of the expansion and we have months until pre-patch, and even when I hear things about shadowlands I just feel meh about it.
It started back at BlizzCon when they announced Shadowlands as the next expansion. I was excited like everyone else until the featured part of the trailer came up and it showed ”level cap 60”. Up until that point it had only been rumored that a level squish might happen. I really didn't think much of it just silently hoping it would get shutdown internally.
But it didn't and I told myself it really didn't matter and tried to move on with my life. Over the coming months as Alpha became available and more information kept coming out about the game nothing felt exciting to me. I couldn't explain it. Normally I would be all over that news and looking at whatever spoilers I could find on wowhead.
But I really just felt indifferent to it all. They tested the new starting leveling experience for new players and I liked it and it was something needed for the game, but when I thought about it more I felt disappointed about the leveling experience after that and the fact that all my years of playing is going to boil back down to level 60.
I know the number doesn't mean really anything at all. But psychologically it bugs me to no end. I'm not one to get up and arms about things in wow even if I don't agree with it. I didn't agree in Warlords when they scrapped the major faction city's in favor of ashran. I didn't like it but I lived with it. I didn't mind garrisons in wod. I felt like if they had kept the city's garrisons would be remembered a bit more fondly. In legion when people complained the that the artifact weapon system wasn't alt friendly, didn't bother me I felt like it was more of a reason to play my alts. Even the heart of azeroth system wasn't my favorite thing but I lived with it and even enjoyed things like island expeditions.
Part of me it feels pointless to do a level squish. I know they are doing it for new players so it's a less jaring number. With no context of how long a level is it might seem like a lot to do 120+ levels. But in reality I feel like it isn't a factor with how fast leveling is even with out heirlooms gear it doesn't take long. Unlike say the stat squishes where there was a tenincally thing. We where getting numbers so big that the wow engine couldn't handle any bigger numbers. So I can live with that. The level situation could have been fixed in other ways. A level squish will be a temporary fix cause at some point we will be back to level 100+ again and we will be doing this all over again. The true fix to all this is really whole new game either WoW 2 or something else.
My point is there have been plenty of things the WoW team has done that I may not have liked but I've always found a silver lining. But with the level squish I just can't do it. Chances are when Shadowlands comes out or if I get beta access I’ll look be able to look beyond it, but in the mean time when I hear shadowlands subconsciously I think of the level squish and almost every-time I just feel meh about the expansion.
