While the official release of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is not scheduled until later this year, players in the alpha and beta of the game have been exploring the parts of the expansion they have access to thoroughly. Already details for new WOW class updates have been found by dataminers, and this is far from the only new info discovered by players.
Exploration opportunities for players in Shadowlands have been somewhat limited, especially in the alpha version of the expansion, which limits them to Revendreth, one of five new realms. This has not been enough to deter some players, and Twitch streamer Asmongold was among them as he took a team into the undiscovered country of World of Warcraft's new expansion.
Asmongold and his league of explorers traversed to a particular bridge in Revendreth and, from there, made their way into the void between the Shadowlands' realms. From there, they could explore some details of the other realms that have not yet been made available to the public at large, as well as glitchy areas not meant to be accessed by players. Then, unexpectedly, members of the party began dropping dead one by one, with Asmongold surmising they were being killed by a Game Master. His suspicions were confirmed soon after when GM Zorbix materialized and proclaimed "GG" to a startled Asmongold before vanishing once more.
Click here to see the clip.
Asmongold was very upset when his exploration party was killed, claiming that the devs were "cowards" for not facing his party directly and showing themselves. It is not the first time that devs have stepped in to stop players from performing certain actions, as they have done so before both in WOW and other MMORPGs. Blizzard has more to gain from keeping parts of Shadowlands secret at this point, as other data such as new races has been leaked already. If any more gets revealed, there will be few surprises left to draw players in.
On the one hand, it is discouraging to see the spirit of exploration so, well, discouraged by the World of Warcraft devs, as it just shows how eager players are to be immersed in a new part of the world that means so much to them. This is the same playerbase that ran a pandemic model on a fan WOW server to help promote social distancing, among other communal acts of kindness.
On the other hand, Asmongold and his group were exploring in glitch territory they were never meant to see, and it does no good to be upset over sudden defeat when off the edge of the map. Things going wrong are very much to be expected. Perhaps the WOW devs want to keep a close eye on the community that caused a pandemic in the main servers years ago thanks to the Zul'Gurub raid, especially since that raid's coming back in WOW classic.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is scheduled for release for PC some time in 2020.