Shadowlands Pre-Patch, Scourge Invasion Event Kicks Off New WoW Expansion With A Whimper
World of Warcraft’s eighth expansion, Shadowlands, is just two weeks away, but the game’s pre-patch event arrived along with a slew of new features and quality of life changes earlier today.
The two-week long “Death’s Rising” event (outlined in full here), deals with the aftermath of the Shadowlands cinematic, where Sylvanas Windrunner unleashes hordes of undead monsters upon Azeroth’s capitol cities.
Once you log into the event, you’ll have a quick chat (and watch a cutscene) with a member of your faction, which will get you up to speed. On the Alliance side, King Anduin Wrynn is captured by one of Sylvanas’ creatures, presumably a plot point that we’ll address in the actual expansion.
Right now, however, your character is given the exceedingly boring task of flying all around the Alliance (or Horde) starting zones to check in on some NPCs. After that, you’ll kill 12 zombies, go to another region, kill like 12 more zombies, plant a flag – and then you’re done until the next week of content releases.
If it sounds boring, it is. For now, at least. Once players complete these initial quests, they’ll unlock new dailies in the Icecrown zone to collect new currencies and purchase Shadowlands-themed armor from specific vendors. This is not unlike the pre-patch event for Battle For Azeroth, where you rinsed and repeated the same dailies over and over for two weeks and re-assembled a remastered armor set from expansions’ past.
Both of these events, come to think of it, are significantly less enjoyable than the game’s sixth expansion, Legion. In that event, zones around the World (of Warcraft), were absolutely SHELLED by waves of Burning Legion forces. You would find yourself allied with random players and friends alike to take down wave after wave, and could SERIOUSLY power-level your characters with all the residual experience. It was a brilliant (if accidental) catch-up mechanic, and an absolutely thrilling public event.
Here’s hoping week two of Death’s Rising is a bit more dynamic.
