Just want to tell the story about my first trip to shadowlands after installing the expansion pack..
I started off by traveling to Jobe through the portal in Old Athen. Then I proceed to go through the portal to Plaza because I was curious to see what the various shops there had to offer and maybe talk to some NPCs and get the background story, maybe some leads for quests etc.
Once I go through the gate I see some female NPC, can't remember the name right now, but it's not important. I go over to her and start a dialogue. It starts with me asking her if I can as her a question, she says yes, and I ask the question. Based on her answers I want to ask her another question, and I start doing that. Bla bla, yada yada, end of story is that she throws me off the island and I end up in the middle of the newland lake.
I then have to spend 15 minutes running all over the place to try to get the hired thugs away from the newland grid term so I can get out of there. When I failed to do that I blitz through newland to the ICC whompa and barely make it out with a sliver of health left.
Exactly what is the point of creating this hostile atmosphere from the beginning? The whole expansion evolves around quests and talking to various NPCs, asking questions etc. But already on the first possible mob you can talk to you learn that trying every possible dialogue (like any old adventure game player would do) can have dire consequences like throwing you off the planet or whatever. Instead of encouraging people to talk to NPCs, this does the opposite and makes people afraid to do so.