Monday, March 12, 2018

Suramar and the Max-Level Zone

One of the biggest successes in Legion, an expansion I think I'm just going to come out and say has been WoW's best (not that it's flawless, of course, but what is?) is the level-scaling feature. It turned out so obviously well that they went back and applied the feature to the entire leveling experience, and while there are some kinks they'll need to keep working out of that system, having now leveled up one Allied Race character and another one coming soon (he's 103 now I think) I can say that it makes the experience of questing and leveling a lot more enjoyable.

One of the big benefits of the system is that at level 110, all of the Broken Isles are effectively max-level zones. The developers were not forced to sequester little sub-zones that leveling characters would be forced to avoid and max-level characters would swiftly get bored of (like Warlords' daily quest areas,) instead everything is available.

But Suramar, the Broken Isles' southern central zone, was different. Unlike the others, it did not scale to level: you merely went there only after hitting 110.

That's not unprecedented, of course. Max-level zones have existed since the Isle of Quel'danas. But typically they're added later in the expansion. The only real precedent for Suramar was in Mists of Pandaria: the Vale of Eternal Blossoms (Tanaan Jungle could have counted if we had had access to it beyond the short intro quests in 6.0. It was technically there, but you couldn't go in.)

Here's the big difference, and indeed the difference between all other max-level zones and Suramar. In the past, max-level zones have all been about repeatable content. The Broken Shore, released in 7.2, is a great example (though again, it's a bit odd in that you could technically go there prior to the patch, both in the expansion-starting scenario and even just once you were in the isles, though there was not really any content beyond a ton of boss-level enemies in that latter form.) While there were story quests in a lot of max-level zones, such as the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, Suramar made those quests the primary focus.

Essentially, the richness you get from the story in a leveling zone is something you typically don't get in a max-level zone. I'm going to harp on the Broken Shore again by pointing out that its "story" quests were really only there to introduce concepts for the zone - there was almost nothing that actually furthered the plot of delving into the Tomb of Sargeras beyond, you know, actually doing it.

Suramar, on the other hand, had a complex narrative - one that was doubled in 7.1. You literally built a rebellion starting with just one other person, eventually taking back the city. And while Suramar City was clearly the main focus of the zone, there was also a ton of stuff outside the city that felt just as full and fleshed out as any quest chain in a leveling zone.

RPGs are, at their basic level, story-based games, and WoW often gets caught up in the MMO side of things to the extent that story takes a back seat. But as someone who's always excited to find more story, it was a joy to have an interesting plot to quest through even after I'd started putting together by badass raid gear.

What I wonder about is if Suramar will provide the model going forward. The Broken Shore was far more like earlier models, and while Argus had more of a plot, it was still more of a prerequisite to unlock your world quests (I was disappointed that Antoran Wastes, the most "final part" part of Argus had almost no proper quests.)

In Battle for Azeroth, we'll effectively be getting three max-level zones at the start in the form of the other faction's continent. I'm very excited about the fact that leveling a Horde character will be an entirely different experience from leveling an Alliance one. But I also wonder how much plot we'll get invading the other side's territory. I could imagine that we'll just get a short series of quests to establish a foothold and then we'll have a bunch of world quests, but I hope that we'll get a chance to really explore the plot and characters of the setting from this different perspective.

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