Shadowlands Pre-Expansion Patch

Hey, since I'm currently still dipping my toes into retail I can write about the same stuff as all the cool kids are talking about: the pre-expansion event for Shadowlands.

So far it consists of three parts (though my understanding is that more will be added this week):

Part one has you talking to Genn Greymane in Stormwind and he tells you in the form of a cut scene that King Anduin was abducted by some weird flying creatures. As a sort of afterthought it transpires that other faction leaders were captured as well. It's all a big plot by Sylvanas! I'll admit that I've only been following the storyline of the current expansion from afar, but this all feels kind of ham-fisted and disconnected. I did like how you had the option to trigger additional conversations between the NPCs though if you're interested in that kind of thing (which I am).

Then you get sent off to investigate and deliver some reports about a Scourge invasion in the area, which involves slaying a couple of zombies but doesn't really feel very exciting.

Part two gives you a quest to kill Nathanos Blightcaller at the Marris Stead, where he just happens to hang out, waiting to be attacked. Doing this results in a cool cut scene, though it was a bit weird/buggy for us in a group. The husband and I got separated so he actually got his kill before me, but we were still grouped so I suddenly got thrown into a cinematic while flying over Arathi Highlands. I quickly escaped out of it so that I could watch it again later in the proper context, which fortunately worked. The husband on the other hand never saw the cut scene at all and had to go to YouTube to watch it. I thought that one was pretty neat, even if it involved an NPC kill-stealing from the players once again.

Nathanos also dropped an ilevel 115 weapon, which was more than double the strength of what I had. I'd read somewhere that you could kill him repeatedly if you wanted more than one (e.g. if you were dual-wielding, which my monk is), so returned later for another go but had no luck, as the two additional kills resulted in no loot whatsoever. However, at least this gave me an opportunity to try out the pre-made group finder feature, which was functional but weeeird.

Part three of the event has you flying to Icecrown and doing a couple of dailies there as well as the option to visit a world boss every twenty minutes. (There are twenty different ones on a rotation.) Doing so rewards you with a currency that you can trade in for some catch-up gear, which once again more than doubled my ilevel in those slots.

The most common opinion of the event from what I've seen is that people tend to find it okay but underwhelming. I actually kind of like it though, but then I'm probably not a good judge - once I started thinking about it, I only really remember the Cataclysm pre-expansion event and no others, as I have no memory of taking part in either the BC or Wrath ones.

Anyway, I do wonder whether this isn't intentionally designed to appeal to players coming over from Classic or more generally returning old-school players, because it certainly ticked several boxes for me:

• Killing Nathanos at the Marris Stead is something Alliance players do in Classic as well, so it's a nice tie-in.
  
• It's hard not to get the feels when returning to Icecrown. I always say that Wrath wasn't my favourite expansion and was when things first started to go downhill (in my opinion), but that doesn't mean that I don't have plenty of good memories of that expansion too. The bosses are all revived versions of Wrath dungeon bosses as well, uttering familiar quotes, so there's a lot of "a-ha, I remember you" going on. There's nothing quite like watching Falric fear several dozen players around an Icecrown rampart.
  
• I've seen people complain that the twenty minutes between boss spawns are too long/slow, but personally I appreciate the somewhat slower pace. I'm not a completionist who's there to camp all the things, and I agree with Rohan that the timing encourages you to use the bosses to bookend other activities. In general I feel that retail is too much of a rush-rush game these days, but that's a whole different post to be honest.
• The bosses also actually encourage some friendly community interaction as people will always helpfully share spawn times and locations in general chat (the new map ping system is really cool by the way). People being friendly and helpful to strangers in retail? Perish the thought.