Today we entered the portal which brought our lovely character Lemundra into the latest World of Warcraft Expansion of Shadowlands. As a first time experience, the story was pretty interesting to say the least. The portal brought us to the first area of the game called the Maw. It is a region which acts like a sort of purgatory for souls who can no longer receive their just death sentence. This may take some time to explain in order to understand what I mean by this.
In the picture above, we see a large being called “The Arbiter” whose job was to judge all the souls who enter the death realm and give them their just sentence. Those who were good would be placed in good locations to serve out their afterlife. Those who were bad would be sent to the Maw. However, the Arbiter was disabled by a great evil that now causes every soul, good or bad, to be sent to the Maw by default. It was thought that once you entered the Maw, there was no way out. However, our Character Lemundra, aided by her friends, was able to escape and make it to Bastion.
From an overall story standpoint, this is as far as I have gotten. I am now in bastion just doing the normal expansion questing and learning of the evil that is beginning to corrupt bastion and the shadowlands at large. The Jailer, who is the leader of the Maw, has been able to corrupt many in Bastion and is wreaking havoc in the area. It has been our job to keep these evil forces at bay with our Affliction Warlock character Lemundra. With approximately 6 hours in, I find myself feeling the grind I did previously in BFA. You follow the main story arc as well as complete any side missions that are directly in the area in order to level up and receive the updated gear that Shadowlands drops.
The pacing of the leveling actually seems a bit fast. The fact that I am level 54 and I am not even done with the first of what appears to be 4 or 5 regions in Shadowlands makes me think that I will be max level before I am through. Additionally, the gear upgrades feel good. I am not using any heirlooms so each upgrade is indeed a significant boost to my pre-shadowlands gear, in some cases more than doubling my item power per slot. This is the magic behind World of Warcraft, the gearing and gear upgrade systems that make things very addicting for people to continually grind dungeons and world quests to hopefully receive an upgraded piece of gear.
Overall I find myself really enjoying the grind, and although the channel is experiencing a temporary lull in action, I personally have enjoyed the ASMR streams that allow me to just play the game while streaming to my chat without having to speak to my chat. Any interactions have been simply through the chat features of twitch. It takes some pressure off for sure and allows me to take in the sights and sounds of a new region of WoW that I have never explored before. The atmosphere and world building in these new regions is truly breathtaking, and I look forward to exploring more in the days to come.
Thanks again for those who continue to support the channel during this personal goal of mine of going through the WoW shadowlands content. Looking forward to bringing you more tomorrow!
Kind Regards,
Blackboa