Blizzard finally noticed how much World of Warcraft's beginning sucks

Blizzard is adding a new starting zone and newbie quests to World of Warcraft. Exile’s Reach, a small island springing up in the upcoming World of Warcraft: Shadowlands expansion, features a “new starting experience” for levels 1-10. It’s a more guided and linear set of quests meant to present a better first impression to new players. It even has tutorials for signature class powers.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2020/04/15/blizzard-finally-noticed-how-much-world-of-warcrafts-beginning-sucks/

Thank goodness, Blizzard has finally figured out what World of Warcraft needs.

Yeah… that surprised me as well.
Even less thinking required of new players in a game that already 90% plays itself by now.

I welcome this new direction towards an idle game.

[quote=“TheSHEEEP, post:3, topic:146847”]
Yeah… that surprised me as well.
Even less thinking required of new players in a game that already 90% plays itself by now.

This is a welcome change. Since the Cats revamp, the base leveling experience hasn’t gotten any love. For truly new players, it’s a shit show. The story is all messed up as you rubber band between different timelines.

Also, the number 120 is a daunting number and to get to 120 takes about 60 hours. From what I have seen, Shadowlands puts it at close to 15 hours. Plus, you can pick one expansion and just level through it in its entirety rather than doing say half of Wrath, then half of WoD, then some of Legion, and doing all of BfA.