Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Beta Incoming, Other News From This Morning's Livestream

The Shadowlands Beta is due to start next week, and while there's still "work to be done," the expansion should be in its "feature complete" state, meaning that we'll be able to mess around with soulbinds, the evolution of the mission table, and max-level content including the Maw zone and the various Covenant campaigns.

While we didn't get a Blizzcon's worth of news, it's good to hear that, despite the pandemic, Blizzard has been making good progress on the expansion, and it's still on schedule to release in the fall.

All in all, there wasn't anything super revelatory, though we did get a little info on how the different covenants are going to feel. For instance, those with the Venthyr will apparently need to be involved in courtly intrigue and politics, with mini-games based on, say, throwing an important party. Those with the Night Fae will have to manage farm reminiscent of the one in Pandaria, only this time you're basically farming up Wild Gods.

Details on the physical collector's edition were also previewed (something I've never gotten, physically or digitally) with the usual swag (including pins for each covenant, about which Ion Hazzikostas joked that choosing to wear one would cause the other three to self-destruct).

They've taken some time to remind people that the numbers fine-tuning is going to be one of the last things they do, though they will try to fix things that are so profoundly broken (either overpowered or underpowered) that it interferes with testing other systems.

Mythic plus and raid testing will, of course, be happening in the beta, and they want people running those a lot.

Anyway, not a ton to discuss here, but some welcome updates, and definitely exciting news about the beta opening up.

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