Shadowlands Tomorrow!

 Shadowlands, WoW's 8th (!) expansion launches tomorrow (or today if it's the 23rd in your time zone.) So while we're all hoping for Bronjahm to drop his freaking bag (I really can't complain, as I've gotten it on 4 characters now, but I want to get it for my Rogue, dammit, and I missed two spawns today because I remembered he was coming about two minutes after he did) the pre-expansion event will come to a close an hour before the expansion goes live. That is set to occur at 3 PM Pacific time, at which point you should get a quest sending you to your faction capital before getting a ride to Acherus, and from there to Icecrown Citadel.

Your first character will have to complete the campaign quests, which will take you first into the Maw, and then to the capital city of Oribos, and then through the main quest lines in Bastion, Maldraxxus, Ardenweald, and then Revendreth. At level 60, you'll pick your Covenant, which will lock in the two abilities and your options for things like soulbinds and such.

There is a ton of theorycrafting on Covenants, but I think I'm going to try to ignore that and just pick the ones that fit the personalities and characters of my various characters - my theory being that ideal covenant might shift over the course of the expansion. Is this a terrible idea? I hope not!

I'm given to understand that they've nerfed the amount of XP you need to get from 50-60, which was very necessary, as I finished the final story quests in the Beta before that change at about halfway through 57, which meant I eventually needed to dungeon grind after finishing all the side quests in... I think every zone. The intention now is that you should be able to hit the cap with the four leveling dungeons and the campaign, but I'd say do some side quests just to be safe (especially in the early zones, as these will not scale up, and thus their XP will be deprecated when you outlevel them.)

Now, subsequent characters can choose to either go through the same linear path or pick their covenant immediately and then level up through side quests and bonus objectives. Beware: the entire main campaign quests (other than the Maw intro, which you need to get through to make this choice) is unavailable if you choose this, so make sure you really don't want to do any of those story quests. Side quest chains should still be available, and you'll have bonus objectives in the regions where the main story quests would otherwise be in order to make up for the lost XP.

Personally, I'd recommend doing the main campaign at least on the first couple characters, particularly because this will give you a chance to try out all the covenant abilities before you commit to a choice. If you put your full trust in Icy-Veins or Noxxic or whatever the kids are using these days, then feel free to just pick the best-simmed one, but I'm going to try them all out (note that before you commit even in this version of the leveling experience, you do get to try out the various abilities on combat dummies before you make a choice).

I'm given to understand that the first raid, Castle Nathria (which is actually the only announced raid at this point) opens up just two weeks after launch. I don't know how easy it will be to gear up for that in time, but that of course depends on your playstyle (given the year we're in, I imagine people will have more time to power-level.) Castle Nathria is the home of Sire Denathrius, the main villain of Revendreth, and is a massive gothic castle (insert Arrested Development joke here) where Denathrius has been stockpiling anima while the lower classes of Revendreth suffer, not to mention the souls there that are supposed to be getting rehabilitated but are instead just being squeezed for every last drop of anima.

Anyway, it's a brand new day in WoW, and we'll be leaving behind Azerite Armor and Heart of Azeroth essences the moment we enter the Shadowlands (well, the armor will stay, but we won't get the azerite powers anymore.)

I think the big question is whether the Soulbind system will feel as intrusive on the gameplay as Azerite was - I'm hopeful it won't, but we'll see. (Personally, I'd love to see the next expansion ditch these "borrowed power" systems and just go back to straight gear - artifact weapons were cool, but I don't think we need another version of them in every expansion.)

There is plenty of story left to be revealed, and apparently some bits that were missing from the beta (such as the cinematic that shows how and when the system of death got broken - something we know happened after Ursoc died but before Teldrassil burned - was it the death of Argus?) that I'm eager to see.

Anyway, it's a big day for WoW tomorrow!