My Life As A Gamer: Shadowlands Follow-Up 2

It's done. My main is now Level 60.

Now that I'm into the early endgame, I can give a preliminary assessment.

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands follows the idea that the process of leveling to the cap is nothing more than a very long tutorial. On your first time through, you are locked into a very specific order of events that is nothing more than introducing the player to the new factions in the expansion, the new Borrowed Power mechanics, and by the end you are also introduced to the endgame gameplay loop for solo players. This is all disguised by covering it up with narrative conceits.

Unlike the last three expansions, the introduction is more like it was in Mists of Pandaria. The first zone you travel to--The Maw--is an actual zone and you will be returning to it twice before reaching the cap. They used phasing technology extensively to reuse created assets in differing contexts, and other clever tricks are also behind things like not allowing flight at launch. (You'll be able to later.)

You will travel through each of the four new faction's respective zones. You will try out each of their abilities. You will not explore all of their zones; some subsets are for Level 60 characters, and some auto-flag you for PVP. You will visit what will be the hub for each of the new factions. All of this is Try Before You Buy (Into One Of Them).

The narrative itself is simple: Final Boss has plan for Existential Threat. Suckers one Faction's leader to go along with it. That man subborns the henchmen of another to do the same, betraying their master. A third is beset by another group of Final Boss's allies last seen in the previous expansion in a single zone and dungeon. The last is beset by a real traitor using dissidents to wage a color revolution. You experience this in reverse order, and witness some lore character assassination along the way.

And yes, this being set in the Lands of the Dead, you better believe there's fan service in the form of returning (dead) lore characters. Those encountered as you level up are, for the most part, either Dead In The Prequel (Draka) or villains you ganked in old raids (Mograine, Vashj) with a couple of glorified cameos (Ysera, Ursoc). Yes, you encounter yet more once you start the endgame. (Kael'thas and Kel'Thuzad, for example.)

It's a mostly pleasant experience, and a mostly bloodless one. So long as you're not a games journalist, you should be able to reach the cap without dying once. Only quests marked for a group will threaten you; get help or wait to join in on another's attempt. Do not expect this at endgame. Provided you stick mostly to the campaign, you should hit 60 at the end of the Revendreth leg of the campaign and move on to early endgame.

That means choosing which Faction--"Covenant"--to align with. I will give the devs credit here; when you start in on the new Borrowed Power mechanic, they explicitly say that they are lending you their power, and it is valid only so long as conditions require it. (Yes, you can switch; no, it's not easy- just bothersome and tedious.) All of the things put into the game since Warlords of Draenor now appear: a Hall to work from, a Mission Table to manage, NPCs to use on that minigame (which now works like an autobattler like Combat Chess; this is meant to tie into the mobile app), and World Quests unlock as well as an a PVE version of the PVP Renown system.

So, as it has since launch, the game at the cap is not like the leveling experience. If you like the latter, resubbing now isn't worth your time and money; wait for a major patch release so there's more of that sort of thing to do. You also cannot skip the initial introduction quests involving The Maw yet; if you love your alts, log into them once so they can begin accrusing Rested XP but otherwise leave them benched for now.

Which leads me to the TLDR: Good leveling experience, but still unfriendly at endgame to playing more than once character at a time unless you're a no-lifer like Asmongold. All of that Games-As-Service timegaing kicks in then, and that's before accounting for the player culture. Unless you really want to bust into Mythic Raiding or Rated PVP when it gets unlocked in early December, take your time leveling up. You'll be better off for it, assuming you want to play at all.

And more on the endgame tomorrow.