(There's No) Planning In Shadowlands

Blizzard seems to be managing the buzz around the upcoming Shadowlands expansion for World of Warcraft rather adroitly so far. The way they finesse datamining to make it into a marketing opportunity rather than a security issue is exemplary.

They obviously could not have foreseen the extraordinary circumstances in which the run-up to launch would occur. It makes it a little difficult to unpick what's part of the original plan, what's a genuine response to the situation and what's a hybrid of the two.

Given that one of the tent-pole features of Shadowlands is the Level Squish and a complete re-write of the entire concept of levelling, including adjustments to the experience curve that "make it faster than ever", it seems somewhat odd to go for what looks likely to be several months of double xp. It seems even odder to see people jumping on it.

I've already half decided to buy Shadowlands when it launches. I have no history of buying WoW expansions. When I first played the game I bought everything that was available in a matter of a few days - first the base game, then Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, when I discovered to my immense surprise that WoW was actually not at all bad.

Those were all the expansions there were at the time. By the time Cataclysm appeared I'd already stopped playing. I never felt the need to buy another expansion after that although I did re-subscribe for the Legion pre-events. I enjoyed them so much I put Legion on my Amazon wish list and Mrs Bhagpuss bought it for me for my birthday.

I never played it. I think I left it uninstalled for a couple of years and then, when I finally got around to trying it, I lasted about two sessions. Until Classic came along I was perfectly happy with the sub-level 20 free trial whenever I felt the need for a wander around Azeroth.

I've always been mildly curious to see the changes wrought by the Cataclysm and explore the lands of the pandas. Just not curious enough to level up and do anything about it. The revamped levelling plan for Shadowlands has me very intrigued.

It sounds as if it might be possible to experience all the eras of WoW in concentrated short form. I'd like to see how that might work. It would also mean seeing quite a lot of content completely new to me, possibly in the form of some kind of whistle-stop tour through WoW's greatest hits.

There's also the extremely tempting hint that it might be possible in Shadowlands to play a Vulpera without having first to level a character to max and then jump through a circusful of hoops. I said back when the fox race was first revealed that I'd re-subscribe if I could start as one and I still feel that way.

All of which suggests to me that right now would be the very worst time to go all-in on double xp. Why would I want to level a character up before the big changes to levelling? Okay, I realize that for some people levelling an infinite number of characters is no problem but even as a confirmed and committed altaholic I do retain some small sense of perspective.

I confess I am tempted to re-sub for a month or two. There's no real clarity yet about how long the lockdown will last here in the U.K. but it's going to be a few more weeks at least. It could be even longer, especially if there's a phased return to the new normal.

That would make having access to superfast xp on Retail and also being able to return to do a bit more on my characters on Classic quite an attractive prospect. If, that is, it wasn't for the freakin' great elephant in the room that is the new levelling experience.

So I'm going to resist the siren calls for now. At least until we get a hard release date and some indications of what the pre-launch events might bring. One way or another, though, I suspect another visit to Azeroth may feature in my gaming future later in the year.