Tag Archives: World of Warcraft

BlizzCon 2017: Battle for Azeroth, the Horners, and Questioning My Fandom

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BlizzCon is once again upon us. After an utterly cringey video trying to sell the Blizzard community as some warm and welcoming place (a notion easily disproved by 30 seconds in WoW), the announcements started coming hard and fast. And yet in all that news, I found very little that excites me.

The official logo for World of Warcraft: Battle for AzerothThe Battle for Azeroth begins:

Let’s get the biggest news out of the way. The next World of Warcraft expansion is Battle for Azeroth, focusing on the war between Alliance and Horde.

Again. Seriously.

Sigh…

So many awesome expansion ideas. So many potential plot threads. And they decide to once again flog the same dead horse they’ve been trying vainly to resurrect for over ten years. What a waste.

The thing is, we know this is a story that can’t go anywhere. No faction can either win or lose. We already went down this road in Pandaria, and while there was some great story-telling along the way, it was a story that ultimately went nowhere and changed almost nothing.

It makes the characters out to be such numb-skulls, too. By working together, the Alliance and Horde just defeated the most powerful army in the entire universe and saved countless trillions of lives. And now they’re back to clubbing each other over the head for land. Sure, that makes sense.

I do like her new outfit, I'll give you thatAnd honestly, it’s just depressing. Every day I wake up to news of the world spiraling deeper into hatred and despair, intolerance and paranoia spreading like wildfire, conflicts that will never be solved claiming more and more innocent lives. Do we really need that in our entertainment, too?

Urgh…

To add insult to injury, Azshara will be in this expansion as a raid boss, but that means we’ll never get an expansion all about her. The most legendary and exciting villain left in the Warcraft universe is being thrown away as an afterthought. It’s like if Wrath of the Lich King had been just one tier.

Now maybe — maybe — if she’s the last boss of the expansion, if it turns out everything else builds to her, maybe they might be able to do her justice. But I’m not hopeful right now.

I’m not sure if this is a silver lining or salt in the wound, but a lot of the actual features of the expansion are things I like. There’s two new continents this time, Kul Tiras and Zandalar, and those are both places I’ve wanted to see in the game for a very long time. I just wish they weren’t tied to such a pathetically dull meta-plot.

This time the continents are actually faction-specific, though you can access the other at max level. My guess is as an Alliance player (for example) you will never have access to Zandalar’s main stories, but you will be able to do world quests and dungeons there.

A preview of the new World of Warcraft expansion, Battle for AzerothThe most big ticket feature, at least in my view, is the oft-requested sub-races, though Blizzard is calling them allied races, and mechanics-wise they’re closer to full new races. There will be six at launch — including two new types of Elves — with more coming later.

Oddly, you’ll have to unlock the right to play these new races. The cynic in me is expecting some terrible pointless grind, but maybe it will be more story-driven like artifact quests, in which case it could be fun.

The new content types -Warfronts and Island Expeditions — are the sort of thing I’ll need to see in action to form an opinion of. And we’re getting a new artifact, but this time everyone gets the same artifact, and it’s a necklace. So basically the artifact system is continuing minus everything that made artifacts interesting. Sure, why not?

There will be leveling changes, as well, and at least some of these will be available before the expansion launches. While they’re not implementing the “One Azeroth” system I dreamed of, they are expanding level-scaling to give the old world broad level ranges. Legacy content is still irrelevant to max level players, but at least leveling will now flow a bit better. And you can skip Outland.

It’s unclear what, if any, other changes there will be. The plot of the expansion includes massive geo-political changes, most notably the destruction of Teldrassil (which means Horde are bad guys again, because absolutely everything about this has to be as tired and stale as possible, apparently), but there’s no talk of actual world changes. Will it be a phased thing? Will it only be in lore and not reflected in gameplay? You’d think if they were doing another Cataclysm, that would be a big headline.

The new Void Elf subrace in World of Warcraft: Battle for AzerothBattle for Azeroth is also missing a lot of other things I was hoping to see: No playable Vrykul, no new character customization, no new classes or specs.

Eh… I don’t know, man. I can’t muster any enthusiasm for any of this right now. Not even new Elves, and that’s a red flag if ever there was one.

Warcraft classic:

Here’s something no one saw coming: Blizzard is finally caving and planning to implement official vanilla servers.

There are a lot of people with a lot of very strong feelings on this. I’m not one of them. Honestly I never really saw the appeal. There are a few things I’d like to able to revisit about classic WoW, but it’s not enough of a draw for me to want to actually put in the time needed to actually level through it all.

I just don’t have much to say about this. I’m including mention of it for the sake of being thorough, but I just don’t care either way.

StarCraft: Meet the Horners

If there’s one thing about this BlizzCon I’m unabashedly excited for, it’s the new StarCraft II co-op commander(s): Matt and Mira Horner.

Mira Han-Horner in StarCraft IIThe idea of Matthew and Mira Han being a joint commander has been floated in the community a couple of times, and I’ve loved the idea from the beginning, but I never imagined Blizzard would actually do it. That they have is just delightful. The banter, people, think of the banter!

The gameplay video makes them look so fun, too. You can crash a space station into your enemies!

They will also be implementing the winner of the fan-made co-op map contest, though at this point I think I want a map veto more than I want new maps, so I’m not so excited for that.

The other news is that StarCraft II is about to go free to play… which is a little confusing, because it already is. And while the new update will relax some of the restrictions on non-paying players, it won’t eliminate them entirely, so really this is just a marketing gimmick more than any meaningful change.

But if it gets more people in StarCraft II, that can only be a good thing. Even if it’s winding down now, SC2 is one of the best things Blizzard’s done in the modern era.

The rest:

Blizzard’s other titles have gotten pretty much the news you would expect. Overwatch is getting a new map and hero.

The new support hero, Moira, in OverwatchThe map is BlizzardWorld, a theme-park based on Blizzard’s non-Overwatch games. It’s the most meta thing in the history of meta. The Protoss section is so beautiful I almost cried, though, and I admit I did laugh at “Snaxxramas.”

The new hero is an evil Scottish scientist named Moira. She’s a support.

They also had another animated short (about Reinhardt this time), which once again gives a hint of how amazing the Overwatch universe could be if Blizzard actually did anything with it, but they aren’t, so my ability to care is pretty much gone at this point.

Heroes of the Storm announced some general tweaks, including what appears to be massive nerfs to all stealth heroes, plus two new heroes: Overwatch’s Hanzo and Warcraft’s Alexstrasza. My enthusiasm for Heroes is greatly diminished these days, but I have to say the cinematic for those two was absolutely nerdgasmic. Man, I wish my Elven characters in WoW could look like Alex did there.

I’m probably reading too much in, but I was also intrigued by the repeated hints to “events in the Nexus” that will be unveiled at a later date. Not sure what that means, but it sounds important. Again, I may be reading too much in.

Finally, Hearthstone is of course getting another expansion, Kobolds and Catacombs. This was mainly amusing for watching the developer tie himself in knots trying to describe an expansion based on Dungeons and Dragons without using the phrase “Dungeons and Dragons.”

Alexstrasza the Dragon Queen in a Heroes of the Storm cinematicEngage cynicism:

I have to be honest: Mayhap soon the disappointment will wear off, or things will turn out better than I expect, but I have never questioned my Blizzard fandom as much as I am right now. This is a pretty big BlizzCon for news, and the only thing I’m genuinely excited about is a minor patch for StarCraft II. That’s bad.

It boils down to this: I became a Blizzard fan for the stories. Say what you will about Blizzard’s story-telling, but it always made me happy, since I was a little kid. But now we’ve reached a point where every single one of Blizzard’s franchises seems to have given up on story altogether, except Warcraft.

And Warcraft? Well, the Legion’s gone. Azshara’s about to be gone, and apparently she’s just being thrown away as a side story instead of being treated as the epic legend she is. There’s still N’Zoth, but as much as I’ve enjoyed the build-up around him over the years, I don’t really have much emotional investment in him.

It’s hard to imagine a future where I’m not a WoW player, but I think Blizzard may have finally run out of stories that I want to hear in that universe.

And I just don’t know where I go from here.

The Mustering of Azeroth: I Was Lightning Before the Thunder

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Another class campaign in the history books: shaman. This makes for 75% of Legion’s class stories finished, as well as at least one class of every armour type at max level (a first in my WoW career).

My Orc shaman in World of Warcraft: LegionStorm, earth, and fire…

The shaman story, to be honest, just isn’t that good. The fundamental concept is flawed.

Your mission is to unite the four Elemental Lords against the Legion. That’s something that seems reasonable at face value — shamans deal with the elements, after all — but is revealed to be powerfully stupid once you examine it.

It does draw some attention to one of the most confusing aspects of Warcraft lore (so confusing even I’m not exactly clear on it): What, if any, is the distinction between the elemental spirits and the elementals?

I have long operated under the assumption they are, in fact, separate. The elemental spirits are shown to be omnipresent and usually (but not always) benevolent, whereas the elementals are mainly imprisoned in the Elemental Planes and usually (but not always) evil.

But the distinction has never been clearly drawn, and WoW often seems to treat the two groups as interchangeable, so it’s all deeply confusing.

The Elemental Lords assembled as part of the shaman campaign in World of Warcraft: LegionIf my assumption is correct, it doesn’t really make sense for the shaman campaign to focus on elementals rather than the spirits, but even if I’m wrong, it still doesn’t make sense, because one thing that’s absolutely certain is that the Elemental Lords are bad news.

The Elemental Lords have historically been servants of the Old Gods, and they all hate mortals. Trying to give them more power is a colossally bad idea. Not that long ago at all, our characters were fighting tooth and nail to depose the Firelord and Windlord, and the shaman campaign asks us to end the chaos in Firelands and Skywall and appoint new ones?

This will not end well.

Heck, even Therazane — usually portrayed as one of the more stable and reasonable Elemental Lords — has some dialogue in the campaign implying the only reason she’s fighting the Legion is that she wants the privilege of destroying Azeroth herself.

And now we’ve unified all of the Elemental Lords into a single, powerful fighting force. And last I checked the protections around the Elemental Planes still haven’t been fixed after Deathwing punched them open, so there’s literally nothing stopping them from invading Azeroth en masse and launching another Cataclysm.

There are a lot of class campaigns that involve doing morally questionable or potentially dangerous things, but I never thought the worst one would be not demon hunter, or death knight, or rogue, or even warlock, but shaman. Gambling with the fate of the world might make sense for the Black Harvest, but shamans are supposed to be bringers of peace and harmony who serve to keep the forces of the world in balance.

My Orc shaman in World of Warcraft: LegionThe Broken Shore leg of the campaign doesn’t do much to help matters, either. It does wrap up a long-hanging loose end from Cataclysm, which I appreciate, but it does so by once again forcing you to work with someone unambiguously evil who will clearly stab you in the back at the first opportunity. You’re forced to play as a gullible idiot.

There’s other problems, too. In terms of the cast of characters, this is a very weak campaign. Half your followers are just faceless elementals we’ve never met before.

Stranger still, Azeroth’s two most famous shaman are almost totally absent from the campaign. Thrall’s disappearance is likely due to Metzen’s real life difficulties, which can’t really be helped (no matter how illogical it is in the context of the game lore), but there’s no reason Aggra couldn’t have played a starring role. Instead, she’s barely there.

With them out of the picture, the focus is on Nobundo, and while I like Nobundo about as much as I ever like Draenei (Broken > regular Draenei), he doesn’t really have the charisma or star power to carry a story like this.

At least Mylra’s still fun.

Gameplay wise, the campaign is also lacking. At one point it even commits the most cardinal sin of MMO quest design: Sending you straight back to the exact same location you just were to kill the exact same mobs you just killed. I couldn’t believe Blizzard would sink to something like that in this day and age.

The shaman order hall in World of Warcraft: LegionAnd I don’t like the class hall. It’s too cold and uninviting. When I picture a shaman hall, I think a cozy spirit lodge with elders sharing wisdom around a bonfire.

One thing I can say is that the shaman campaign does more to illustrate the full extent of the Legion invasion than the rest of the expansion, even if does so mainly by telling rather than showing. It confirms that the invasion is far worse than is reflected in-game.

Also, as lame as the rest of the campaign was, the artifact quest for the Fist of Ra-den is absolutely nerdgasmic from beginning to end.

Even so, though, this is still probably my least favourite campaign so far.

…heed my call!

It’s not all bad, though. While I didn’t like the class’s story, the actual playing a shaman part was a lot of fun.

It’s something of a joyful reunion, really. You see, my shaman is actually one of my oldest WoW characters. He’s only a few weeks younger than my mage and my rogue, and older than most everyone else on my roster.

My shaman in World of Warcraft: LegionHe was always on the backburner, though. A neglected third or fourth alt. And as time went on, I increasingly lost interest, mainly due to frustration with the “whack-a-mole with cooldowns” playstyle of enhancement.

As a result, my shaman was eventually abandoned in late Cataclysm (I think?), having never once reached the current max level.

Enhancement still doesn’t feel great to me, but with tri-spec now a reality, I gave elemental a try, and I love it. The spells are visceral and satisfying to use, and the toolkit feels very well-rounded: one DoT, a spammable filler, a powerful nuke on a short cooldown, a resource-spending instant nuke, a proc. It’s got everything you could want.

In retrospect I probably should have tried elemental a long time ago. It just seemed weird to have an Orc who doesn’t melee, but I’m having so much fun with elemental I don’t really care anymore.

I also continue to play restoration when in group content — being a healer is a crucial part of his backstory, and in my heart I consider that his “main” spec — and it remains very fun. It’s probably my favourite healing spec in Legion.

A close-up of my Orc shaman's face in World of Warcraft: LegionIt’s actually remarkable how little resto has changed over the years. Oh, sure, there are some adjustments that have been made, the loss of Earth Shield being the most notable, but fundamentally it feels about the same as it did back when I first played it back in Wrath. Something comforting about that.

As with elemental, I enjoy how well-rounded restoration feels. It has a little bit of everything and a tool for every situation. Its strength lies in its versatility.

And beyond the raw mechanics, it feels good to finally have my shaman at max level, doing raids and heroics. It feels like the fulfillment of a promise, somehow. I’ve always loved the backstory I came up with for him, and I never stopped regretting abandoning him. Maybe he’ll never be my new main, but I’m glad he got to have his moment in the sun.

Lok’tar.