It would be wrong to assume that World of Warcraft over the past 16 years has become less popular and successful game. Days when this game was considered the most popular in the world, for a long time behind, nevertheless, it stably increased revenues from subscriptions and sales of extensions in a significant scale during the entire time of its existence. Also stupid to ban any expansion as "return to the origins": WOW veterans will always argue that each expansion is either a shameful betrayal, or a triumphal return, but different parts of the community rarely agree that there is something.
However, this time things are different. Shadowlands, the eighth extension for WOW - or perhaps it is more correct to call him the ninth edition of the game - in December 2020 for a short time I became the most-selling computer game of all time, before the release of Cyberpunk 2077. Director General of Activision Blizzard Bobby Kotik also told about this venerable franchise , Cooking record indicators of the involvement of players before the release of expansion and noting that WOW brings more than a billion dollars a year, which makes it financially equal to the Call of Duty franchise.
What is the reason for this success? Of course, with a coronavirus pandemic. Many of the popular game franchises caused the increased interest of the game community this year and, accordingly, the increased sales indicators were demonstrated. It is not surprising, because everyone spend more time at home in search of comfort and entertainment.
The cat also suggested that last year's launch Retro Wow Classic became a turning point. The developers argue that in the communities of classical and modern games of the series not so much intersecting audience, but it is easy to assume that Classic revived and seduced many people who returned veterans to try and modern WoW versions. And since the games have a single subscription fee, they are commercially indistinguishable.
Innovations in the SHADOWLANDS Level System
Shadowlands is something like a soft reboot for World of Warcraft. From the point of view of the narration, this is relatively simple. Although the starting point of the travel players in Shadowlands - the version of the afterlife in the Warcraft Universe - lies somewhere in the confusing history of the soap opera Battle for Azeroth 2018, as soon as the player turns out to be "over the veil", it will mostly interact with a completely new character character and fractions. Did not forget about the fan service, returning several loved characters who died in the previous parts of the saga.
In the overall list of new extension functions, it will be difficult to find a decisive-new direction for World of Warcraft. Brilliant Legion 2016 can be a more convincing argument in favor of redefining a modern game: he presented the adventures of associates who were played while the player was not online; viable single endheim content in local tasks and in Artifact Power; The structure of resource production and character progress in endgeym, quite different from the usual Grey of Equipment. Variations of these ideas moved to Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands.
Of course, the cardinal changes occurred in the preliminary patch of Shadowlands, and they were free for all WOW players, regardless of whether they buy an extension or not. This is a level update that reduces the number of characters from 120 to 50 (up to 60 shadowlands). It does not so much reorganize the course of the game, how many fully aligns it, pushing new players right in Battle for Azeroth after initial training or allowing them to go to favorite expansion, scale their character level accordingly.
It is less than a grand and spectacular step than complete processing of quests, accompanied by Cataclysm 2010, but it may be even more significant, as it will seriously simplify the entrance to Shadowlands for new players, as was supposed.
Plot, World and Game Process
To knock out the 60th level in Shadowlands is quite simple. Wow finally completed the transition from a geographic organization - a winding series of transitions from one hub to another - to a narrative structure, familiar on any modern role-playing or a game with an open world. There is a major plot campaign that will occupy most of the time as the level increases, plus additional side quests, on which it is possible to linger optionally.
The narration of Shadowlands focuses and closely connected with its main feature: Covenants. These are the four fractions, to one of which the player decides to join when it reaches the maximum level. This is Cyrian (Angels), necrokolords (necromancers), night fairies and a firt (vampires). Each faction takes care of its corner of the afterlime world. These four kingdoms extend on the expanses of a truly hellish landscape called watches - places so terrible that it is impossible to move on top. The urroba rules the giant sadistic creature named the jailer, who consists in the Union with the latter leader of the Horde with a suspended winder and pumps the souls of all the dead to maintain their own army when invading the real world.
TOTAL
Whatever strange it seems to be Shadowlands adds World of Warcraft more identifies than all recent additions, makes it more affordable and less limited. Probably, this factor has become decisive, given the current popularity of the game.
We should not forget that one of the secrets of success WoW has always been his ability to modernize, remaining faithful, and never pretending to others other than the old school MMO. Therefore, it is difficult to recognize the shadowlands by returning WOW - after all, in fact, he did not leave anywhere.