Shadowlands Patch 9.2 Eternity’s End Preview Thoughts

Yesterday Blizzard announced with a YouTube video the. Shadowlands Patch 9.2 Development update. Announcing what appears to be the final patch for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. With this patch called Eternity’s End, players will be going to a new zone in the Shadowlands created by the first ones.

So without further ado, let’s get into what they are planing on bringing us players. There will be a new zone called Zereth Morris, The Enlightened (new brokers), a new system called the Cypher, the. Final Raid, and the return of Class Tier Sets. We will be going through each of these a bit more and giving our thoughts on each one.

New Zone: Zereth Mortis

The new zone Zereth Mortis was created by the First Ones, and is apparently intended. To create afterlives. The denizens are. The robotic Automa which have created all the things in the Shadowlands, Azeroth and all the other realms. The Jailer plans to use the power of this place to reshape everything.

This zone looks interesting, however I am unsure how the lore will play in with the Titans. As Blizzard has been trying to change it so that the First Ones are above the Titans. We will have to wait and see how this plays out. However, the artwork looks beautiful for this zone and it the Blizzard Art Team has done a great job on it.

The Enlightened

These are brokers that had arrived in Zereth Mortis a long time ago. Apparently they have transcended seeing things in a transactional way (so no longer Ferengi). They are treating this place as a sacred place and want to answer a higher calling. The Enlightened are more like Monks who want to defend Zereth Mortis.

Cypher of the First Ones

This new system, is basically unlocking the musical language of the Automa. You will be unlocking and learning the language using a Cypher of sorts. You will have an automa sidekick (reminds me the little robot from Dragon Ball GT). The Cypher is replacing renown and will be how you unlock the zone activities, daily quests, events, and rewards.

The counter here is, many of us players do not want anymore new systems. New Systems = not listening in my honest opinion. More dailies, and how long it takes to unlock the zone is not a good look. The argument here is they are trying to find a way to get players back into their chores. While players don’t want chores they want to be able to play the way they want. So this is a bad move, and should be looked at again.

The Cypher is a cool idea as maybe a side quest thing, however using it as a system for zone unlock is just going to cause problems for most players.

Raid: Sepulcher of the First Ones

As this appears to be the Final Patch, this would then the Final Raid. In the Raid you will travel to the Sepulcher of the First Ones where the key to Jailer’s plans lies. The players will be gathering the power of the First Ones to pursue Zovaal into the Sepulcher. You will be facing many enemies including Anduin and try to discover a way to resist the Domination Magic.

The Raid seems interesting, and would be amazing for average players to experience. It can be argued there is Raid Finder however, I don’t believe it’s the same. I may be spoiled by Final Fantasy XIV right now where they force you to dungeons, and raids for the Story and Cut Scenes. They have a Dungeon and Raid Duty Finder for all the content so all players can experience. This is one point I believe that Blizzard could learn and improve WoW with. If they opened up where you can queue up for Mythics, Dungeons etc and make it more accessible. More players would do the content and not feel left behind.

Class Sets Return

After a few years Class TIer Sets are set to return. This is a great thing for players, however I will call out the lack of design for these sets. To me they look to similar, same color scheme and no class uniqueness for the lore. It’s embarrassing, though it’s a step in the right direction. They are. Also making it so you can obtain via Raids, PvP and Mythic+ again alienating their casual player base.

While there are plenty of nice things with this preview, there are still many things that concern me. Including they still aren’t listening to their player base. They are continuing to remove things just because it’s offensive to them now. Not that it’s offensive to others. I went on a bit of a rant about this, on stream last night. They need to focus more on the game instead of social justice issues.