World of Warcraft: Legion · 7:08pm Aug 6th, 2015
Just got done watching Blizzard's presentation on the next WoW expansion at Gamescom over in Germany, so I figured that I'd kind of mull over some of my initial thoughts in a blog post.
The Good
- Beta stars this year, so we might not be stuck in such a massive content drought like we were between Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor. Yay!
- Artifact weapons. These sound like they could be really cool to me, being both legendary weapons that look quite cool, but that also have a talent tree like update system, that could make for kind of a third path of character progression.
- Class Order Halls. A place where you and fellow members of your character class can kind of hang out at and that seem like they're going to be tied into aspects of the story. It's an interesting idea and one that I hope goes over a lot better than the disaster that was Garrisons in Warlords.
- Demon Hunter hero class. People have been waiting for this class to be playable since vanilla WoW, so it's nice to see it being introduced into the game. The class has a nice anti-hero kind of look going for it right now, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays.
The Bad
- The Broken Isles. I was really hoping for a South Seas focused expansion pack, which I've gotten....kind of. The Broken Isles are indeed set in the southern seas of Azeroth, but the offical map we're seeing from Blizzard is showing this one group of islands a bit more mushed up into more of a continent-esq shape. I understand why. One of the big complaints about the new zones in Cataclsym is that they were scattered across the world, which gave the expansion more of a disjointed feel. So pushing everything together makes sense....but I was really kind of hoping to see the South Seas islands in general, rather than just this one set.
- Burning Legion as the main bad guys. According to Blizzard, this is the "largest demonic invasion in Azeroth history", which has emerged into the world from the Tomb of Sargeras (which exists in the Broken Isles). The Legion is kind of my least favorite of the Warcraft antagonists and it kind of feels like they're going back to the well on this one. Most of the new races of the Isles mentioned in the presentation are supposedly pawns or under the thumb of the Burning Legion, which makes them feel wasted in their potential to me.
Admittedly, this is a problem that a lot of long running and iconic franchises can fall into at times. Once you get known for some things, you keep using those things and introduce fewer new concepts. How many planet destroying super weapons are just laying around Star Wars? But I want to see new things! SHOW ME NEW THINGS BLIZZARD!
- Moronic continued existence of faction conflict. I've never really cared for the PvP aspect of WoW and I loathe it even more when I see it existing as a millstone around the narrative's neck. In the face of the "largest demonic invasion in history", the Horde and the Alliance are supposedly at each other's throats, to the point where adventurers of the various classes have banded together to form those Class Order Halls I mentioned above to stop the Legion.
So, apparently, the Alliance and Horde are content to fiddle while the world burns. How am I supposed to have any pride for my faction when they're so, unbelievably stupid? Gotta keep the PvPers happy I suppose.
The Ugly
- No real word on whether or not the problems with Warlords are actually addressed. Whether there will be enough content, or if the factions and reputations will have story tied to them, or if the content in the world will be robust, compared to the absolute empty wasteland that is Warlords. Admittedly, this was just the initial announcement, really, but considering how insanely light Warlords ended up feeling, we'll have to wait and see on whether or not Blizzard can deliver.
So, Blizz....are you prepared?
*runs away from incoming thrown objects*
I never really paid attention to WoW, I play Heroes of the Storm and Diablo 3 so that's something.
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I don't really envy Blizzard's position sometimes.
The nature of Azeroth has always been this kind of rolling state of recons and updates, since Warcraft II revealed that there was a whole rest of a continent north of Stormwind. Kind of the situation you can find yourself stuck it when you develop your world piecemeal, as needed.
So, I have a higher tolerance for the retconning and instead focus more on whether or not what is currently being presented is good or not. Warlords...really, really wasn't. This one could be, even though it's quite obvious by now that Blizzard's writing skills are not in the subtle and nuance department. Blizzard is the Spinal Tap of fantasy writing. Everything goes to 11.
They need to get a grasp of their own timeline, the original and the 'new' since WoD kinda re-did it, but somehow without ever breaking the future in any way whatsoever.....
3300586
I think that if I was to sum up my experience with WoW, I'd go with, "It's complicated."
I like being able to make and customize a character within a setting more than just controlling things from above, all detached like. Not to diminish the fact that the stories of WCII and III are quite awesome, I'll just lean to an RPG over an RTS when the option is presented to me.
But, lord, have some of the story decisions that they've made for WoW boggled my mind, starting right around the whole "There must always be a Liche King!" decision they made back in Wrath. And a lot of the other ones have kind of gone downhill from there....
But part of me just can't walk away. WoW has kind of become kind of a digital home for me. A crazy, nonsensical, sometimes completely broken home.
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That's kind of the WoW Paradox, in a nutshell. They can't just entirely reboot things, but cause I think that would cause a lot more issues. I just think that they need to resit the knee jerk reaction to retcon things in massive broad strokes.
I will buy it, play for a few months until my old wow buddies from TBC stop raiding, and then let my sub expire again.
The game really doesn't hold much interest for me anymore other than as a social platform to hang out with old friends. Maybe that's why Garrisons of Draenor felt so... flat after the story quests were finished.
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Honestly, I'm not entirely sure that's the wrong way to go about playing an MMO. Subscribe when there's content to do and when you've run out of things to do that you find fun, take a break and come back later when you're interested again.
3301078 I just have to resist the siren-call. I was tempted for a minute when the new patch came out, but I kept my resolve. If I couldn't be bothered to find a raid group to do BRF, did I really think I would for Gul'dan's new pleasure palace? Answer: no.
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At least i have played WC3 so I am not entirely out of the loop in some of the required lore knowledge here.
I think I might have an explanation for why the Horde and Alliance are still fighting, at least from a story point. But before I explain to you, have you seen the new cinematics for Wow: Legion?
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Oh, I've seen the cinematics and are well aware of the reasons Blizzard keeps using to keep the two factions at each other's throats. I just think they're really, really stupid.
Using the Broken Shore as an example. We can assume that the Horde and Alliance were smart enough to decide to work together when it came to the demons, but not smart enough for either side to say "Hey, if we've being over-run, one horn blast.". Likewise, the fact that the Alliance somehow couldn't see the valkyire carrying away wounded horde by the armful didn't add up to me, since they came in very high. They should have been able to see them. And it goes on and on like that, back through the WoW expansions.
Basically, both factions are handed the idiot ball to keep the fight going. And I hate it.
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