World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.

November 23rd, 2020, Activision Blizzard released the 8th expansion for their game World of Warcraft. Today I would like to take some time to talk about the new expansion, after the release.

There have been many changes to the game and how it is played over the sixteen years that it has been running. One of the most noticeable changes is that the level cap dropped from level one hundred and twenty, down to sixty. This was done because there was felt to be a stagnant aura coming from the game due to having so many levels. Especially when compared to other MMORPG titles.

Playing through the new content at least to achieve the new level cap, took me around twelve hours. Once I obtained the new max level, I have spent some time working on professions. The professions systems feel about the same as they have for a while now, albeit there were a few changes made to crafting gear, as well as the addition of Optional Reagents. Optional Reagents allows you to change the item level as well as the secondary stats of your crafted items.

There is also the introduction of crafting legendary gear items. To do so, you will need to obtain four components, presumably different components for each item. You will be able to create a base level Item for each profession-based gear types, and then sell them on the Auction House, or send them to your alternate characters. Thus, there is no requirement to have a specific profession on each character. This is great news for altoholic’s everywhere.

Gathering professions are the same as they have always been, you travel around, stop for a moment to pick a flower, or mine an ore node. If you have skinning, then you get to spend an extra moment claiming the fur and skin of the beasties of the areas that you are questing in. Finally, we have fishing, I spent about an hour doing some fishing in a couple of different zones. This seems that it can be a rather lucrative profession at least while we are early in the expansion. Of course, prices always fluctuate.

Another great feature that was added with this expansion is the immediate ability to skip the need to do all the quests in a specific order on alternate characters. The first character that you take from fifty to sixty is required to follow what is referred to as the “arc quest line”.

Once you have made it to level sixty and chosen your covenant, your alts will be able to finish the quests to escape the maw, and then upon making your way into Oribos you will be given a quest called The call of Fate. This quest will have you seek out and speak with Fatescribe Roh-Tahl. The fatescribe will give you the option to either do the quest line as you did on your first character or to choose the Threads of Fate. The Threads of fate allow you to level from fifty to sixty without doing the campaign in fact, the campaign cannot be done at all.

Instead, you will level by completing the world quests, for each zone as you quest throughout them. Dungeons, just as you cannot matter the path you take, Zone quests; these are quests that have nothing to do with the campaign. Finally, you will be able to complete bonus objectives to gain experience.

I chose to take the threads of fate path on my first alternate character, once I finished making my way through the maw, I chose Valthyr as my covenant and started in the Revendreth realm.

Thus far I have completed six bonus objectives, four world quests, and four zone quests. This has brought me to about a quarter of the way through level fifty-three.

That is all I have for now; I will have an updated article with more information coming in the next couple of days. If you enjoyed reading this article and are looking for more, be sure to follow up. Thank you for your time!