Warcraft | Superior Realities

In a few days, Blizzard will release the first major content patch for Warlords of Draenor. Except there’s one problem.

What’s the content of this patch?

I haven’t been following World of Warcraft news quite as closely since I’m not currently subscribed, so when I didn’t see any previews of significant content for 6.1, I assumed I was just missing something. But then Blizzard put out their official trailer, and I saw that this really is a tiny patch.

The one major feature that was datamined for the patch, the Iron Docks quest hub, has been confirmed to be delayed to a later patch, and it also turns out it’s just a short quest chain, not a daily hub.

So what are we left with? The only new content is a continuation of the legendary quest chain — which if Mists of Pandaria is any guide will likely comprise about fifteen minutes of actual gameplay/story spread over a few weeks of grinding — and some new garrison quests, which are mostly centered around new incentives for existing content. Oh, and a racing minigame at the Darkmoon Faire.

I suppose a mention could be made of the Blackrock Foundry raid, as well. This was intended to be launch content but was not ready when the expansion released. Oh, the official line is that it was ready but the release was just gated, but the expansion went live in November, and BRF wasn’t opened until February, and they were testing it again on the 6.1 PTR. That’s not launch content.

At the same time, though, it did release before 6.1, so it’s probably not right to count it as 6.1 content, either. It’s in a weird limbo.

Otherwise, 6.1 just offers quality of life tweaks like the heirloom tab (which was intended for launch and was delayed), the new Blood Elf models (also a delayed launch feature), and oddball features like an in-game selfie camera and Twitter integration.

So we’ve got ourselves a major content patch with no major content.

I don’t think anyone was expecting 6.1 to be enormous. The first patch is usually relatively small. Cataclysm’s first content patch added some dungeons — revamped, true, but Zul’gurub was pretty much all new, and it did expand the endgame a fair bit — and Mists of Pandaria’s added a daily hub and some scenarios.

Those aren’t blockbuster patches, but they’re certainly much more than just a handful of quests and a selfie camera. 6.1 isn’t even going to re-enable flight as it was originally suggested to.

Hell, 6.1 would be a tiny patch by any game’s standards. Titles like Neverwinter and The Secret World put out bigger patches than this, and they don’t have anywhere near Blizzard’s resources. The only other game I know of that puts out patches this small is Guild Wars 2, but their patches are far more regular.

Prior to launch, it sounded as if Blizzard had big plans for WoD’s patches. Farahlon and the Ogre continent in the south were all offered as potential patch additions. Farahlon in particular was strongly hinted to be a new zone for 6.1.

But now Farahlon and the Ogre continent are in the “we might still do it but probably not” category, and 6.2 is planned to add Tanaan Jungle, which was supposed to be launch content and is now believed to potentially be the final major content patch for Warlords of Draenor.

So it needs to be asked again: What the Hell is going on at Blizzard?

Here we have by far and away the most successful MMO on the market, made by one of the biggest gaming companies in the world. There are more people working on World of Warcraft than ever before, with it having absorbed much of the resources from the cancelled Titan project. And what they deliver is the longest content drought in the game’s history, followed by the smallest expansion in the game’s history (with over half its raid content delayed for months), followed four months later by an itsy bitsy teeny weeny “content” patch comprised primarily of features that were supposed to be in for launch but had to be pushed back.

Even after fourteen months, WoD was launched unfinished, and after four more months, it’s only starting to approach the state it should have been in at launch — and still missing Tanaan. It boggles the mind.

I’m not fond of tinfoil hat theories, but at this point, it’s clear that Something Is Up. Three possibilities occur:

1: Blizzard is shifting gears and now plans to churn out expansions that are as small as possible as quickly as possible, with little post-launch development. Most of the resources are already devoted to 7.0.

2: Blizzard realized they took the wrong path with Warlords of Draenor — possibly due to a large amount of negative buzz pre-launch — and they’ve decided to cut their losses and focus on getting this expansion over with as quickly as possible so they can work on something better. Most of the resources are already devoted to 7.0.

3: Blizzard has developed a streak of gross incompetence. Most of the development is now being done by a thousand monkeys working at a thousand typewriters.

All possibilities seem rather paranoid and far-fetched, but at this point, what other conclusion are we supposed to draw? Myself, I think the truth is likely some combination of possibilities one and two.

If I were currently playing the game, I’d be hopping mad, but as it stands, I’m just terribly confused. This simply doesn’t add up.

But on the plus side, it is clearer to me than ever that I made the right decision by not buying WoD at launch. The amount of content it has delivered to date isn’t worth $120.*

*($50 for the expansion plus four months of subscription fees at $15 per month.)

We all have our online aliases and secret identities. In my sci-fi forum days, most knew me as ensign edwards. These days, I use my real name for most things, but in the gaming world, I still have my alter egos, and there is one that stands above all others: Maigraith.

The story of Maigraith begins several years ago in Elwynn Forest. It was very early in my World of Warcraft career, and while I’d settled on a mage as my main for the time being, I was still trying a lot of different classes. I’d seen my father playing a rogue, and it looked fun, so I decided to make one of my own.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to stick with the character, but I wanted to see Elwynn and Stormwind, so I made her a human, figuring even if I didn’t like the class I’d at least explore some interesting areas of the game.

I gave her black hair in a ponytail, figuring that she needed a hairstyle that wouldn’t obscure her vision while she cut people up. I settled on one of the few human female faces that seemed appropriate for a killer: hard and tough-seeming, with brown eyes that looked almost red.

Finally, I named her Maigraith, after a character from Ian Irvine’s Three Worlds Cycle. All my character names in games are obscure nerdy references, usually from fantasy novels, and I especially favour the Three Worlds books. Partly because I love them, and partly because they’re not super mainstream, and therefore the names are almost never taken by other players. Legolas is never available, but Maigraith always is.

As for why I settled on Maigraith herself, I’m not sure. She was one of my favourite characters, but definitely not my all time favourite, even if I’m limiting myself just to the female cast members. For instance, I liked Ulii much more.

As it turned out, I liked being a rogue. I liked it quite a bit. Little did I know it then, but I would go on to spend more time playing little Maigraith than any other video game avatar before or since. She’s never quite been my focus — she always seems to fall by the wayside — but she’s the one character I never get bored of. My original main, the mage, has been collecting dust since Cataclysm, but Maigraith endures.

And that endurance has rippled out across my gaming life.

In virtually every game I’ve played, I’ve had at least one significant female avatar. Often, it’s the character I play the most. And nearly all of them have been modeled after that most venerable of Stormwind assassins: tough-looking, dark-haired women with practical hairstyles and unusual eyes.

They’re not all exactly the same. Some have white hair instead of dark hair. Not all of them are named Maigraith. But virtually every one of my female avatars has some of the DNA of the original Maigraith. The only major exception I can think of is my Shepard in Mass Effect, who was modeled after Nova Terra from the StarCraft games.

So now I’m commanding a small army of Maigraiths and Maigraith-alikes. My rogue in WoW is still kicking around. Then there’s my warlock in the same game. My thief and mesmer in Guild Wars 2. My Templar in The Secret World. My hero in DC Universe Online. My ranger and gunslinger in Aion. My archer in Rift. My oracle in Dragon’s Prophet. My agent in Star Wars: The Old Republic. My ranger, rogue, wizard, and cleric in Neverwinter. My spellslinger in WildStar. My archer in TERA. My Castithan in Defiance.

And I’m sure I’m forgetting some. That’s not even touching on single-player titles!

I’m not really sure why I started on this. I think originally I just used the name Maigraith a lot because, again, cool reference and rarely taken, and eventually it made sense to me to also copy her appearance in some way.

Plus, it’s a look I like. I’ve already spent a fair bit of time musing on why I play female characters so often, but I think a lot of it just boils down to the fact I like to play agile character archetypes, and in most games, it’s a lot easier to achieve an appropriately lithe yet athletic look with a female than a male, who tend to be roided meat mountains.

I like the tough look because these are fighters and warriors, and it makes sense for them to exude a quiet strength and determination. I give them unusual eyes to hint that they are a bit different from or superior to ordinary humans — many are literally not human. In general, I design them with the idea that they are practical, capable individuals and try to make their appearances reflect that.

And to be honest, most of it just boils down to a sense of tradition. I’m very fond of patterns and habits, so once I started cloning the original Maigraith, I kept at it largely out of inertia and a fondness for the sense of history behind my self-created archetype.

I suppose some might find it odd I spend so much of my free time pretending to be a dark-haired woman with a large sword… but if I ever reach the point where that’s the weirdest thing about me, I’ll count myself lucky.

But I am comfortable with Maigraith as my face in the gaming world. She’s nothing like me, and that’s speaks well in her favour.