Friday, March 23, 2018

Drustvar First Impressions

One of the first zones to open up for Alliance characters in the BFA alpha, Drustvar is something I've been wanting for a very long time - a high level version of the spooky woods. We've gotten zones of a similar sort before - think Duskwood, Tirisfal Glades (and actually quite a bit of the Forsaken-themed zones.) But this is one that will benefit from modern quest design and looks to be quite the large zone (this seems true of all the BFA zones, as there are only three per continent.)

I don't know if this is indicative of the general design philosophy of the expansion, but my sense is that Drustvar is very much about having small, branching quest chains off the main path.

Tonally, I love the zone, though I'm sort of regretting that I went with the very-changed Demonology Warlock to first experience it, as I have to sort of split my attention between the quests and learning all the changes to the spec's rhythm and priorities (Implosion is baseline now, and I really haven't figured out how to use it yet.) I'd love to be able to copy over my actual characters.

Anyway, Drustvar really dials up the spooky fairy tale vibe to 11. The main villains seem to be a coven of witches who have drawn in many of the area's residents. The introduction to the zone is really cool - you find a town entirely frozen by some kind of curse, and all the animals have become hostile. This seems to be all about gradually uncovering the mystery of the witches - who they are, why they are doing what they are doing, and where they're getting their power. It's not quite the Castlevania-gothic look of Black Rook Hold, but instead goes for the fairy-tale creepiness factor. As an example, there's a side quest where you find a village that has been entirely massacred except for a creepily cheerful child, and you have to play along with her plans to have a tea party while you find the corpses of various villagers.

I'm only about a third through the zone, and I'm contemplating doing it on a Death Knight instead.

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