I really wonder if the devs actually tried the island out before they pushed it out but then again, they probably did but aren’t young enough to remember WoW when it was actually popular back in the day?
The new player island is a joke when it comes to immersion and it will not get any new player hooked. People loved the old starting areas back then because they were very immersive and were heavily connected to the race. There were so many girls back in the day who loved anything related to elves and when they went on WoW the first time and ran around Teldrassil they just fell in love with the game. Do you think anything like this could happen now with the new player island…?
On top of this normal human beings do not like being called hero and champion and god knows what. You don’t need to hear that from me nor do you need to pay a marketing agency for this information. You could just literally google Dragon Age Inquisition feedback and read all the comments missing playing Origins where they were just a soldier and not the commander of everything. Do devs not just play any other games?
Adding to that new players do not wanna be thrown into BFA and most of them actually leave it and go back to Kalimdor or Eastern Kingdoms to quest there not realizing they actually have no choice but to do BFA. And then they ask in the newcomer chat on how they can go back to BFA.
If you guys really care about what players want and are not just pretending then re-do the new player experience. If you insist on keeping the island in then let new players do their own starting area first, like Elwynn Forest and then after defeating Hogger they get a summon from Stormwind to go on a scouting mission on a new island. Then it will also make more sense to be called a hero. WoW is bleeding players left and right and only the most hardcore addicts are sticking around to run circles while waiting for content draughts to end. Try to put more effort in making the game fun for new players.
2 Likes
Actually, I know quite a few people who I’ve tried to introduce to Wow since Exile’s Reach was added.
they all relatively enjoyed it, as much as one can enjoy a half baked tutorial island.
their issue was definitely being thrown into BFA.
I do think that once talents are solidly set in stone they’ll add a new 10-60 leveling experience, maybe in 11.0.
Imo Exiles Reach is fine, not great but fine. The problem for new players starts after Exiles Reach. They get thrown into an incoherent and overwhelming world. Not a fan of Chromie time either really, there should be an opt-out for that. Being able to level and unlock level appropriate zones & dungeons as you go was more fun. I miss that.
2 Likes
i personally hate everything they did to leveling… i think they literally killed that portion of the game with this expansion and should just remove levels completely now.
leveling used to be one of the best things to do in this game… but no they had to go and ruin it by making it a rush fest to bottleneck everyone into the lack luster endgame.
‘World of warcraft’ lost its world in shadowlands…
and is now just … Warcraft.
2 Likes
I think a new player does not compare it to the zones before, so does not really think about how the Teldrassil starting zone was better.
But yeah for one being called “hero” is weird, since calling the PC champion and hero only made sense for players who played the game in old expansions, where the logic was that your PC fought for example the Lich King in Wotlk and was now expected to help save Azeroth from the Legion in the new expansion. Calling a newly made character “hero” seems dumb.
The most cringe part to me is that “The Alliance/Horde never leaves anyone behind!” line in one of the first few quests.
1 Like
I think you’ve got a point but it would mean more work for Blizzard. They would have to revamp every old starting zone or make new starting zones that resemble the island for every race. It’s unlikely to happen. Some races start in capital cities now too.
The new island is almost better for veterans because they know they can just blast through it faster than the old zones where quests are more spread out.
I played through Exiles Reach when I started wow back in January…here I am… still playing.
3 Likes
The thing that grinds me in Exiles reach are the cocky “I’m a strong independent woman and ofc my son is amazing” lines… feels so forced.
2 Likes
It’s fine other than the stupid ogre you have to wave at which new players always struggle with.
First time I played WoW I got overwhelmed by the amount of exclamation marks on the minimap when I got to Goldshire, including a green one which I had no idea what it meant back then, took me about a year to come back after that.
You seem angry.Noone takes angry people seriously.
Also ,there is a choice which starting area to play.
Not for newcomers, they have to start in Exile’s Reach 
1 Like
I played the intro myself and honestly, the tutorials there are better than in my main game Destiny 2 (which does a lot better content-wise than WoW imo).
I think Blizzard did good work there to explain the classes, introduce to the world a bit and let players enough room for exploration and core mechanics to be learned.
Aaah okay.Well it is a fast area to take you to 10 then to Stormwind to meet Chromie.
Once,i played the original starting area and i admit i got bored because i’ve done it like 15 years ago again.
1 Like
I’d argue that the worst thing about being a new player is actually the people. If you don’t have friends or a nice guild to help you along the way, you’ll get eaten alive during those BFA dungeons.
1 Like
I tried to get one of my FFXIV friends into Wow… first dungeon was freehold, the tank skipped EVERYTHING and went straight to the last boss ASAP.
The ability to skip bosses is stupid, but that’s besides the point, new players should not be pushed through content that was previously an expansion during levelling.
They need to re-establish a “base game”. What is Wow without its expansions? Would it be cataclysm, which itself is an expansion?
1 Like
or just put it back like it originally was.
1 Like
The noob island gets really ridiculous when you listen to all the dialogues and back in your head you hear Ion saying “For the Horde doesn’t mean Death to the Alliance”, because the island really makes me wanna kill all the Alliance/Horde after playing through.
And as usual a complain thread with a lot of negativity by Athena.
You would rate 0/10 wrathgate video from wotlk.
1 Like
NPE should mean all new chars go onto one mega server then get a free xfer to another server later.
it would help push the social and dungeon/grouping element of the game that’s been nuked by dungeon finder…
I absolutely agree. It starts off pretty weak and the first hour is really important to grab someone’s attention. It feels like a level tutorial from a single player game, completely detached from the world. It doesn’t give you the feeling of being a noob in this vast word, somewhere in some corner of it ready to go in an adventure. It doesn’t inspire you. It’s just a tutorial level. The game should get away from instanced zones. What made people fall in love with wow back then was the open and huge world and it has gotten worse since then.
1 Like