The Apparent Timeline of the Siege of Zuldazar

8.1 is bringing to us a somewhat unexpected raid: the Siege of Zuldazar. Now, the idea of an Alliance/Horde raid is something I had expected to happen, but it appears that rather than a bunch of mechanically-identical encounters (like the Icecrown Gunship Battle) we'll actually be getting the same fights - just in a different order, in which the Alliance sees the Horde's fights through a flashback (presumably taking on the appearance of some opposite-faction counterpart, like my Human Paladin becoming a Tauren or Blood Elf) and vice versa.

Through broadcast text and other hints, it's possible to put together something of a timeline of the raid. Let's take a look at what we can find:

SPOILERS AHOY

Azerite Gear - Fix or Scrap?

Every time I get a new piece of Azerite gear, I go look up on Icy Veins what the best trait from it is. I also check to see how it compares to other pieces I have. But I tend to go with higher item level pieces, and that actually makes me less of a min-maxer than I could be.

Azerite armor is definitely a different system that what we've had in the past. The question is whether it's a good system. At the moment, I don't think so.

First let's address the grind.

In Battle for Azeroth, you have a special necklace, the Heart of Azeroth, which levels up in a pretty linear way - you get more Artifact Power (it's an artifact like our weapons in Legion were) and it gradually grows in item level. In a vacuum it's extremely straightforward. The Heart of Azeroth has a certain level to it, which, while it corresponds with these item level increases, is otherwise irrelevant to the necklace itself.

But the gear you get for your helmet, shoulder, and chest slots are now "azerite gear." They do not have secondary stats, but instead have a number of traits that are unlocked by leveling up your Heart of Azeroth. They only come in Rare and Epic varieties. Azerite armor has an initial choice of traits that generally correspond to one trait for each spec of your class (a piece will have different traits for each class that can equip it) as well as a spec- (and class-) agnostic trait.

From there, there are additional rings of traits that can be unlocked as your Heart of Azeroth levels up. Rare pieces have one additional ring followed by a single 5-item level increase, while Epic pieces have two further rings before that central 5-ilevel bump.

The intention here is that you get excited to level up your Heart of Azeroth, because this unlocks further traits in your gear.

In practice, you have a bit of that, but you also sometimes have the feeling that when you get a new piece of gear that perhaps requires higher HoA levels, you feel as if you're getting a downgrade. This is particularly notable when you can't even unlock the first ring of traits, meaning your new helmet is just a chunk of armor and primary stats until you grind out more levels.

If this were the sole problem, I think there would be an easy fix - simply remove any HoA level requirement from the first ring of traits. You'd still be motivated to level it up in order to get some of the other traits farther in, but it wouldn't feel worthless before then.

The other problem is the variety of the traits.

Now variety is usually good, but you can run into problems. Some of these traits are very powerful, or might just be very cool. If you get a new piece of gear, it might be an upgrade in item level, but if its traits aren't as good as what you had before, you can actually see your performance suffer despite having ostensibly better gear.

On top of this, players of hybrid classes or even just those who like to play different specs - maybe you love Frost for soloing but prefer Arcane for raiding - are now expected to keep multiple sets of gear. Admittedly, we hit some of this in Legion, with artifact weapons and legendaries, but this is set up to be a constant churn of gear through the entire expansion.

Players are not crazy about it. I think I would rate it as one of the expansion's least successful features, which is unfortunate given that it's meant to be one of the headlining mechanical features of the expansion. And given the popularity of Artifact Weapons, if you consider this to be their attempt at a follow-up of that feature, it's really hard to argue it as anything other than a failure.

The thing is, I don't really see how they can back out of it until we go to the next expansion.

The Heart of Azeroth is performing a story function as well as a mechanical one, and it's clear that we're going to need to keep it relevant until the expansion's close. But without Azerite armor, the necklace itself is extraordinarily dull - just a neck piece that gradually gets bigger stats over time.

Ideally, Blizzard could just throw a bunch of Azerite traits out there and they'd be balanced enough that people would simply choose from personal preference. But between the hybrid question, the imbalance of traits, and the grindiness of the system, it's going to be a delicate balancing act for the entire run of Battle for Azeroth.

There's a part of me that thinks that maybe they should have just patted themselves on the back after artifact weapons and gone back to conventional gearing like we had from Vanilla through Warlords. If you take the systems from Legion that Azerite replaced - artifact weapons, legendaries, and tier sets - it really does not seem like Azerite is doing anything better than these systems did before.

I hate to complain without a suggestion. To be frank, I think Battle for Azeroth has been a group of admirably ambitious experiments, and some have been far more successful than others (the two continent thing I think is really cool.) I think Azerite gear is ultimately tolerable, but could definitely use some major-patch tweaks to make it feel like less of a burden on the game.

I might have, for example, instead of making each piece of Azerite gear have its own somewhat randomly-assigned set of traits, instead given the Heart of Azeroth some sort of talent tree, and that different armor pieces could have empowered certain traits within it - a bit like how artifact relics would give you another rank in one of your artifact traits, but perhaps instead do something like make each earned Heart of Azeroth trait correspond with one of the different types of, say, helmet you could get. Maybe as a Prot Paladin you'd want to buff your green helmet traits and your purple chest traits, for example.

But that's very much a back-to-the-drawing board kind of solution that is probably too late to implement by now.

I expect we'll see some evolution to the Azerite system over the course of BFA, but even with improvements, I'm skeptical people will look back fondly at it like we do with artifact weapons.

A Story for the Gnomes

When World of Warcraft was first planned, there were only going to be six playable races. You might notice that of the vanilla starting zones and cities, there are only six, not to mention that the original cinematic has only six playable races show up.

Gnomes and Trolls were added later.

When it comes to Trolls, even if they aren't the most popular race among players, their presence in Azeroth is massive. Long before Horde players went to Zandalar, we came to learn that there's no humanoid civilization (excluding the Titanforged) that has a greater history or is as widespread as the Trolls. Indeed, while the Orcs are the flagship race of the Horde, it you want to talk about clashes of Azeroth's most widespread civilizations, making the Warcraft series about Trolls versus Humans might actually make more sense, which of course is reflected quite well in the two continents of Battle for Azeroth.

So in retrospect it's hard to imagine a Horde without the Darkspear representing Troll-kind.

Gnomes, on the other hand, have far less exposure.

We did learn about their origins in Wrath of the Lich King - the seemingly erroneous claims of a "curse of flesh" in Borean Tundra turned out to be true, and we gradually realized that this was not only the origin of the Gnomes, but also the Dwarves, Humans, and other formerly Titanforged races.

But the Gnomes' story has remained remarkably static since Vanilla.

The Gnomes are ancient allies of the Dwarves - despite being separate races, they never seem to have ever had any conflict with one another. Instead, the Gnomes always provided the Dwarves with assistance, even preserving many of the Earthen from the Curse of Flesh while the then-Mechagnomes succumbed to it.

The Gnomes built their city of Gnomeregan not far from Ironforge - the Dwarves' sacred city. But at some point during the Third War, things went terribly wrong, as the Gnomes, expanding their underground city, encountered the Troggs, and then irradiated their city in a misguided attempt to defeat these mutants.

In Cataclysm, we had a final push to re-take the city, but this ended with only a partial success - a story contrivance that allowed the Gnomeregan dungeon to continue to exist, while the old "outside the dungeon" area (something you used to see with a lot of Vanilla-era dungeons, which sort of required you to fight through a bunch of elites as a party before running the dungeon proper) was remade as a new Gnome starting area (prior to Cataclysm, Gnomes and Trolls simply started in the exact same place with the same quests as Dwarves and Orcs, respectively.)

Gnomeregan is officially reclaimed - the Gnome faction changed from "Gnomeregan Exiles" to simply "Gnomeregan" but the Gnomes haven't gotten much in the way of story since. Indeed, they are the only vanilla-era race to never have appeared in an expansion's cinematic - a long-sore sticking point.

Now, 8.1 datamining suggests that High Tinker Mekkatorque will actually be one of the bosses the Horde fights in the Siege of Zuldazar raid (and the Alliance will fight him in a flashback.) As always, I worry when established characters show up as bosses. Rastakhan and Jaina are both going to be bosses in that raid, and I'm worried for them, but Mekkatorque is particularly worrying because they really haven't even given him an arc.

The Gnomes, to be clear, have always served as comic relief. For whatever reason, Blizzard finds small people who are really into engineering to be hilarious. But I think that the Gnomes' Horde counterparts, the Goblins, while not getting very serious stories, at least have a more fleshed-out identity. Goblins aren't just inventors, but they're also utterly ruthless capitalists, making everything they do some kind of business. Gnomes seem to come off more benign in their exploits - it's not about profit, but pure scientific discovery.

There is one detail, though, that I think is really interesting. I don't remember exactly where it was mentioned, but the High Tinker position is actually a democratically elected one. This makes Mekkatorque the only person who is in power entirely because of the will of his people.

And in this case, that actually means that there's a potential opportunity if Mekkatorque dies in the Siege of Zuldazar - we could actually see the gnomes go to the polls.

Azeroth is a setting that is only sort of medieval - like most good fantasy in my tastes, it remixes ideas of the middle ages (or any past age) with more modern ones and even futuristic, science-fiction ones (consider the fact that the Burning Legion is less the classic "legions of hell" and more of an evil space empire.)

I don't think we would need to lose the amusing tone of Gnomes in order to give them more story exposure. But I do think that, as one of the longest-running members of the Alliance, they deserve some time to shine.

Sylvanas's Role in All of This

Sylvanas has not been a full "good guy" since she was alive. As the Ranger-General of Quel'thalas, taking over after her sister Alleria disappeared with the closing of the Dark Portal, she was nothing but a noble, serious, professional defender of her people. It was the wicked cruelty of Arthas - his soul lost to Frostmourne and replaced with a callous and murderous will to serve the Lich King that he would one day become - that robbed her of her life, transforming her into a Banshee. Even while still a part of the Scourge, she would reclaim her body, taking the form she currently has (let's all forget her old Night Elf model that oddly lasted through BC after they'd added Blood Elves.)

Oddly, Sylvanas owes Illidan Stormrage for her liberation from the Scourge. It was his actions - coerced by the Kil'jaeden, who had lost control of a Lich King that was far more willful than anticipated - that caused the Frozen Throne to be damaged, and the leaking power of that crystalline structure suddenly restored to half the Scourge in the Plaguelands their free will and minds.

Sylvanas rallied these free undead to her side - having been one of Arthas' chief lieutenants, she was the highest ranking former Scourge person in the Plaguelands, and she swiftly gathered some of her liberated fellow banshees to attempt to assassinate Arthas. It was only the intervention of Kel'thuzad that prevented her from taking Arthas out when he was still merely the Scourge's top Death Knight.

From there, she waged a campaign against both the Scourge and those undead that were being brought under control by the Dreadlords - primarily Balnazaar, Mephistroph, and Varimathras. After cornering the latter, Varimathras submitted to her and became her majordomo, turning on his fellows and leaving the Legion's presence in the Plaguelands severely compromised.

And that's where we joined her in vanilla WoW. Balnazaar had infiltrated the Scarlet Crusade from the moment of its inception, transforming a rather practical order of undead-fighting paladins, priests, and other humans into a fanatical group of zealots who refused to recognize the difference between the Forsaken and the Scourge. The Crusade had representatives in Stormwind, and most of the Alliance believed them to have good intentions, except for a few heroes who heard from ex-Crusaders about the Scarlets' depravity.

This disconnect - the Alliance's credulity toward the Crusade - may well have been what prevented the Forsaken from re-joining the Alliance, which if you think about it, would have been the logical move. Sylvanas was an undead High Elf, leading a bunch of undead Humans. They had all been part of the Alliance, and had there been a better effort to understand what exactly these Forsaken were (and a better effort on the part of the Forsaken to explain themselves,) it's likely that both Undercity and Silvermoon would be firmly in the hands of the Alliance.

But while they are former Alliance, the Forsaken are also former Scourge, and they have retained a great number of their practices.

Having Varimathras as a lieutenant also wound up creating greater chaos. At the beginning of Wrath, the Alliance and Horde have about as good a relationship as ever - there are quests in Borean Tundra where, as a Horde player, you escort Alliance deserters to an officer out of Valiance Keep for punishment. There's a somewhat begrudging cooperation in these efforts, to the extent that there's even friendly banter between Draenosh Saurfang and Bolvar Fordragon at the Wrath Gate.

But the Wrath Gate is where it all changes.

The problem is that, being former Scourge, the Forsaken have been working for years on their Blight - a biological weapon capable of slaying any foe - living or undead - en masse. The stated purpose was to use as a weapon against the Scourge, though they were happy to use it against the Scarlet Crusade as well.

Ultimately, though, Varimathras, working with Grand Apothecary Putress, bombarded Scourge, Alliance, and Horde alike with the Blight at the Wrath Gate. The intention was a coup d'etat at the Undercity, where Varimathras nearly killed Sylvanas (not unlike what she had done to Arthas, actually) and sent her briefly into exile. Varimathras had clearly meant to use Undercity as the launching point for a renewed Burning Legion invasion, and actually managed to summon a great number of demons before we took him out. The Horde rallied to take the city back, while at the same time the Alliance invaded to punish those responsible for the attack.

While Varimathras was defeated and Sylvanas restored to her throne, the conflict was not over. Varian, newly restored king of Stormwind, looked on the workings of the Undercity and decided that if the Horde was willing to condone what was done here, there could be no peace. Yes, the Blight had been used by treacherous usurpers, but the Forsaken had, with full endorsement of Sylvanas and Thrall, created the Blight in the first place, torturing and murdering people in order to do so.

One could argue that it was Varian's attack on Thrall here that really started the war that ended with the Siege of Orgrimmar.

Yet, following the death of Arthas, Sylvanas has gone down a darker path still. She has now endorsed the raising of slain enemies as Forsaken, and basically telling them that they can either follow her or die. The campaign in Gilneas was brutal, and the depravities visited upon places like Hillsbrad are shocking.

When Vol'jin was mortally wounded, he used his last breath to name Sylvanas as his successor. Many, including Sylvanas, it would seem, were baffled by this decision, even as he acknowledged that people would not understand why he did so.

And her record has not been great. In the midst of the Legion's invasion, Sylvanas pursued a rather reckless and selfless mission to enslave the Val'kyr Eyir, making a deal with Helya, the terms of which we have yet to totally understand.

And following the arduous and costly war against the Legion, she made a brutal preemptive strike against the Alliance that climaxed with a massacre of civilians - and act that has made many in the Horde question their loyalty, such that even Saurfang, when taken as a prisoner of war, refused to be rescued while she was still in charge. Meanwhile, the Alliance's retaliation left Tirisfal devastated and the Undercity destroyed - at Sylvanas' hands - losing the Horde its biggest foothold in the Eastern Kingdoms.

So why the hell did the Loa tell Vol'jin to put this person in charge of the Horde, when every decision she has made as Warchief seems to weaken them or invite greater bloodshed?

SPOILERS AHOY?

What Stories for Heritage Armor?

In 8.1, Dwarves and Blood Elves will be getting their own heritage armor. We've gotten a bit of information about how these are attained - you need to be exalted with your home city (not very hard to do thanks to the Cataclysm-era tabards) and hit max level on a character of that race, then you get a quest chain.

We don't have a ton of details, but it appears that Dwarves will be revisiting Ulduar, presumably to investigate their Earthen ancestors and their connection to the Titans. Blood Elves appear to largely be looking into the history of the Sunwell and its corruption at the hands of Arthas to raise Kel'thuzad as a Lich, an effort that involved a devastating invasion that left 90% of Quel'thalas dead and moved Kael'thas to rename his people the Blood Elves.

One presumes that we'll be seeing heritage armor for all the non-Allied races as well, presumably unlocked in a similar way. So what stories are worth telling?

I don't think I'm going to go through every single one, but I will point out a few that I think could use elaboration:

Gnomes have been in-game since vanilla, but they are one of the least-explored groups. We know that Mechagnomes in what would become the Eastern Kingdoms were responsible for putting the Earthen into stasis - allowing some of their Titanforged cousins to resist or at least delay the Curse of Flesh while they succumbed to it. While all the drama of the War of Three Hammers was going on, Gnomeregan seems to have been an island of stability within Dun Morogh. I think it's long past due to get some story to the gnomes that takes them seriously (not that it can't have a lot of humor to it.)

I'd also really like to see the Forsaken reckoning with their identity - we've seen a shift from innocent people trying to fend off enemies on all sides to a kind of sadistic cruelty and warmongering cult of personality around Sylvanas. I've always felt that the defining factor for the Forsaken ought to be free will - it's what defines them apart from the Scourge, and it's even reflected in one of their racial abilities. Examining what it means to be Forsaken and what your ultimate goal as a free-willed undead should be could be really interesting.

For many expansions, it always felt like they were ignoring the Draenei. But after Warlords and Legion, I really can't make that complaint anymore. Still, given that their entire culture was built around the defeat of the Burning Legion and returning to Argus, there's an enormous question mark over what exactly they should be working toward now.

The Tauren, I think, also need to think about their place in the Horde. Under Thrall and Vol'jin, the Horde largely lined up with the values of the Tauren people. But even if they've grown to dislike the Alliance thanks to the years of animosity since joining the Horde, there's a lot of immoral behavior recently that really seems to clash with Tauren values. I've often thought that people who want the Horde to just commit to being the "bad guy" faction are ignoring the fact that it's really hard to imagine the Tauren fitting into such a group (not to mention that the nuance of the Horde is one of WoW's best features, when it's written well.)

I could go on, but I think this is an interesting opportunity to delve into racial identity in a similar, if more limited, way to Legion's focus on class.

So When do Night Elves Get Paladins?

If you play a Dwarf Paladin (or newly, a Dark Iron Dwarf Paladin) I feel for you. For a class that is more limited than most when it comes to race options, one might have expected to see full representation within the Paladin class hall during Legion. But Dwarves were left out, with no class champion, while we got a Blood Elf, a Tauren, a Draenei, two humans, a redeemed Nathrezim (I really hope Lothraxion shows up more - kind of a good, Alliance counterpoint to Varimathras back pre-Wrathgate) and, surprisingly, two Night Elves.

Now, to be fair, one of these was a redeemed spirit, but Delas Moonfang was absolutely a Night Elf Paladin. Like many, she began as a priest, but after our defense of Netherlight Temple (coordinated with the Conclave - the two class campaigns are nearly identical) she chose instead to become a Paladin, something unprecedented in Night Elf culture (maybe.)

After hints like the Highborne returning to Darnassus and Aponi Brightmane talking about An'she prior to Cataclysm, a lot of people speculated that Night Elves were about to get the Paladin class.

But we haven't seen anything of that since then.

It's odd, now that they've established lore for it, you'd think they'd go ahead. Night Elves and Paladins are both very popular, so it's not like there would be no demand. And with Gnome Hunters introduced in Legion, it's clear they're willing to add race/class combos on their own and not exclusively in big swaths like Cataclysm.

So what's the hold-up? Don't we want to see a crazy Elune-themed Nightsaber paladin mount?

I'm going to keep this relatively vague, as it's a bit of an 8.1 spoiler, but we are going to be seeing the Night Elves start to explore a more dangerous aspect of the moon goddess - not the peaceful, loving Mother Moon, but a more vengeful Night Warrior - and Tyrande is going to be leading the charge on communing with this aspect of the goddess.

Is she going to become a Paladin? Could that be what this is?

I don't know. But it's definitely a different route to Paladin-ship than the one Delas took.

The Night Warrior

Again, more 8.1 PTR spoilers coming.

To preface: The Night Elves have had a rough go of it the past few decades. It's hard to imagine what it would be like to live for ten thousand years, especially when you consider the pace of events on Azeroth for the past, like 40. For a human, orc, or other race with similar longevity (even doubled or tripled, like a dwarf,) that's a decent chunk of time to fit all sorts of events and turns into.

Many Night Elves remember the War of the Ancients. They only started aging again after the Third War, and despite holding off the Burning Legion in that conflict, they've suffered a great deal since, losing territory to the Horde and eventually losing a massive portion of their population (some places I've seen say roughly half) with the burning of Teldrassil.

The Night Elves had the largest empire Azeroth had ever seen (barring perhaps the Black Empire or the original Titanforged civilization,) and even after its disastrous collapse, Malfurion and Tyrande led their people for the next ten millennia. During that time they were pretty isolationist - though they did have relations with the Furbolg and Tauren.

But once the Horde came to Kalimdor and started trying to log the Night Elves' forests, conflict arose. And it's that conflict that ultimately led to the disaster of Teldrassil.

The Night Elves are demoralized and reeling in devastation after this loss. So what are they to do?

The Dead at War: Wait, A New Take

Well, talk about leaping to conclusions. I'm going to leave the old post there for the hell of it, but I think a lot of my ideas were wrong.

So let's start over, shall we?

This is all a bunch of speculation based on datamined stuff, so take it with a grain of salt.

Right: Spoilers Ahoy!

The Dead at War

This is going to be a post that is nearly 100% speculation about stuff that has only recently been datamined from the 8.1 PTR. So take it with a heaping helping of salt.

If you've been paying attention, you might notice that, despite being ostensibly about the faction conflict and with heavy, heavy hints toward Old God activity that started getting teased in Legion - to the extent that it almost seems inevitable that N'zoth will be Battle for Azeroth's final boss - there's also a whole lot of death-themed stuff.

In the Warcraft cosmos, Death is its own primordial force that is independent of Chaos (represented by Demons primarily, and associated with Fel magic) and Void (represented by the Void Lords and the Olds Gods and associated with Shadow magic.) The Scourge and the Lich King have been iconic villains for WoW, and the lingering effects of the Third War are still very much with us given the Forsaken, Death Knights, and a Scourge that was not so much eliminated as made dormant with a righteous man given the crown of the Lich King and making us all wonder how long someone as virtuous as Bolvar Fordragon could withstand the corrupting power of his position. But aside from the specific history of the Scourge, which we're all quite familiar with, we're just starting to scratch the surface of the other aspects of that primal force - its connection to the Shadowlands, and its ultimate role in the grand conflicts of the Warcraft universe.

SPOILERS AHOY... then a bunch of speculation.

8.1 Goes on the PTR, and Boy Howdy Are There Some Interesting Story Spoilers

Aside from cool new models (including what look like the aquatic form for Zandalari druids and a new Bald Eagle Moonkin form for Highmountain Tauren) there are some MASSIVE STORY SPOILERS that come from various scenarios and such.

Remember that this is all PTR stuff and subject to change, but seriously: there are some juicy bits here.

SPOILERS AHOY (I'm going to be kind of sad when we're not in the nautical expansion anymore and I have to go back to saying "ahead.)

Is Sylvanas' Primary Goal Her Greatest Weakness?

One of the disturbing questions about the faction conflict is just how far each side would take it in victory. After the Alliance won the Second War, they decided (not unanimously) not to kill the Orcs, but instead to put them in internment camps. These camps are often cited as one of the Horde's great reasons to hate the Alliance, despite the fact that they were the more merciful of two options (a thorough rehabilitation and integration program would have probably been the best solution, and I'd love to see that version of Azeroth.)

Certainly one imagines that the Horde has differing views amongst its individuals. But the Warchief has a particularly horrific intention toward the humans of Azeroth - she wants them all dead and raised as Forsaken. She has convinced herself that this is the only way to have peace, but it also conveniently puts her as the leader of a vast population.

Supposedly, the Forsaken have free will. Being undead does do things to you - it deadens positive emotions and sensations, leaving you more comfortable with brutal behavior - but in theory, you should still keep the same ultimate goals and motivations. Yet we've seen Alliance soldiers slain and raised as Forsaken who immediately turn around and attack their former comrades. I could certainly imagine that, after enough time separated from the Alliance and exposed to Forsaken propaganda they might begin to feel they had to work for Sylvanas, but such a sudden change either implies some form of mind control or some kind of narrative expediency that doesn't sit very well with me.

If, however, we assume that the non-Scourged undead do retain their free will, I feel like there's the opportunity for a great story:

One of the things I found frustrating about the Siege of Lordaeron is that Sylvanas was once again ahead of the game. She had put one over the Alliance with Teldrassil and then nearly trapped them in Lordaeron as she flooded it with plague. Villains, especially those we are meant to follow as protagonists, are best when they struggle. Breaking Bad was such a great show because its villainous protagonist was constantly scrambling to survive, and his improvisational gambits were that much more exciting to see unfold because he had to come up with them so reactively.

I've written before that if Anduin had interrupted her villain speech in the throne room with an order to kill her, and that Sylvanas was forced to flee with a few arrows in her back, it would have felt a lot better - Sylvanas would realize she had underestimated Anduin, and Anduin would have proven that despite his benevolence, he's not an idiot. Also, it would have been a really cool parallel with exactly what Sylvanas did to Arthas back in Warcraft III.

So here's what I think would be cool:

The Alliance has an effective spy regiment in SI:7 - we know that they had infiltrators throughout Orgrimmar prior to Teldrassil, which the Horde took advantage of by feeding them false information. Matthias Shaw would, I imagine, feel a great deal of guilt about being played like that.

In spycraft, at the most basic level, you can get a lot by seeming to give your enemy exactly what they want.

So here's the scenario I'd want to see:

The Horde is having problems with spies stealing important documents or something, and enlists the Horde hero in capturing the spies. To their shock and delight, they find Matthias Shaw amongst the infiltrators. The Horde hero kills Shaw, and Sylvanas has him raised by the Val'kyr.

In typical fashion, Shaw finds himself with no choice but to join the Forsaken. But Sylvanas tells him that he has to prove his loyalty. So he gives her and the Horde player the whereabouts of some Alliance base, and the Horde player goes and kills the Alliance forces there.

With the former head of SI:7 now under her command, Sylvanas prepares some big push - maybe even an attack on Stormwind. But just as she is marshaling her forces, something starts to go wrong. Her plague-wagons explode, or her commanders start showing up dead. Or more likely both.

And just as the bombs are going off, Sylvanas gets a blade in the back, with Shaw holding the knife. "For the Alliance," he says, before disappearing into the shadows.

With that, the Warchief is down (probably not dead, but down) and the Horde is in a panic, with the invasion cancelled thanks to a sudden offensive by Alliance forces.

And meanwhile, Anduin is deep in thought, troubled by the sacrifices that this plan required, but resolute in his need to ensure the Alliance's victory.

Sylvanas keeps recruiting, and so far she has always seemed to secure loyal followers. But that's got to change at some point, right?

The Fate of Vol'jin

Well, I finally hit revered with the Zandalari Empire on my Shaman (and sort of wished I'd waited for the Darkmoon Faire to do the subsequent quests as they gave a rather large amount of ZE reputation) and thus was able to do a short quest chain that introduces some interesting elements to the story of a dearly departed character.

Spoilers ahead, though I have talked about some of this stuff before:

8.1 Tides of Vengeance Announced

Well, we were wrong about a lot of things, though that's partially because Blizzard has clearly re-shuffled things for the expansion a bit.

8.1 will be called Tides of Vengeance, with a great deal of focus on the faction conflict.

We'll be getting two raids: one small raid with two bosses called Crucible of Storms in Stormsong Valley, and then the 9-boss Siege of Zuldazar, which will be rather unusual in that the boss order will depend on your faction - I'll explain when I go into more detail.

We'll be getting faction incursions - a sort of riff on Legion invasions that will take over the world quests for a given zone (and perhaps give alternate methods of leveling) in which we hold off the opposite faction's incursions into our territories.

Non-Allied Races will be getting Heritage armor! The requirements of this should be relatively easy to meet - you just need to be exalted with the race's home city and at max level. We're only getting two to start: Dwarves and Blood Elves, but I presume that they'll eventually get to everyone (really looking forward to Worgen...)

We're getting a new Warfront in Darkshore, which will be Forsaken versus Night Elf themed, with new buildings and presumably new forces (I imagine we'll see a lot of WCIII-inspired Night Elf and Scourge units.)

So:

Raids:

I suspect that Crucible of Storms is probably going to be the first of the two 8.1. raids to come out, fitting a similar role to Trial of Valor as a bit of an interlude before the main event. Crucible of Storms is going to be a Naga/Old God themed raid with hints at what Azshara is up to - it doesn't look like we'll be fighting her there, or at least we won't kill her there. But the one screenshot has a big old N'zoth eye, so I expect some Eldritch goodness.

The Siege of Zuldazar is going to be a very unconventional raid. The Alliance and Horde each will have three bosses that they face that are members of the opposite faction, and apparently there will be three that are faction-neutral. Each side then returns after the battle to hear stories about the other fights, allowing them to reenact them (presumably while looking like members of the opposite faction.) Thus, the Alliance is going to fight their way up through Dazar'alor in order to strike at Rastakhan, while the Horde battles down through Zuldazar to then fight Jaina Proudmoore at sea.

While I think Rastakhan - cool new character that he is - is in a position to die for the story (he does have an heir in Talanji,) I would feel a bit cheated if Jaina were to die here so soon after she emerged triumphant and reunited with her family. It'll also be weird doing those "reenactments" where we will have to fight our own friends, even if it is more of a memory/simulation in game terms.

What I assume this also means is that Azshara is being moved back to be the expansion's Kil'jaeden (er... Legion version) rather than its Gul'dan. I'm leaning more toward the idea of a Red vs Blue, Azshara, N'zoth trajectory for BFA now.

Allied Races:

So, it looks like you can already start working on the required reps for Zandalari Trolls and Kul Tiran humans - you'll need to be exalted with the Zandalari Empire and Proudmoore Admiralty respectively to unlock them.

Balance:

They're going to be looking at azerite traits (and some specs, like the two Shaman DPS specs) to balance things better, though this isn't what I'd call the most exciting stuff.

PTR When:

The PTR for 8.1 is supposed to drop by the end of the week, so we'll get a lot more details pretty soon.

8.1 Predictions

Tomorrow (technically today) we're getting a developer stream with news about what is coming for WoW.

Given that we're about a month into Battle for Azeroth, with the mythic race closing in on downing G'huun, there's an open question about just what we have to expect for the rest of the expansion.

So far the only confirmed information they've told us is that Azshara will be the Gul'dan of this expansion - the boss of its first major raid (though again, without tier sets, the line between major and minor raids is blurred.)

What do we expect and want from 8.1?

Longform Quest Content:

The Dusk Lily rebellion within Suramar was a masterpiece of max-level quest content. Even with max-level zones like the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, we had never seen a zone dedicated so much to storytelling for players who were already geared through mythic dungeons and raids. This was an opportunity for players who were already feeling badass from all their purple treasures to then engage in a story that was more thorough and developed even than quests in leveling zones.

It seemed a great model moving forward, but stuff like the War Campaign has felt like a step backward to things like the great-for-its-time Landfall campaign in 5.1.

So getting some real story in there would feel quite good.

New Zone:

While I do feel we ought to have at least one raid in Kul Tiras, I also feel that we really ought to be able to see Nazjatar if we're going to be fighting Azshara. Unless she escapes to headline a separate raid later on, I really want to fight the Queen on her home turf to make it official.

With this zone would presumably come a new faction, new world quests, and hopefully new story content (maybe that longform stuff I just talked about.)

Kul Tirans and Zandalari Playable:

This is something they really shouldn't wait on too much. I suspect they'll be attainable in the patch, but we have yet to figure out what the requirements would be. I actually think that doing the Zandalar Forever and Pride of Kul Tiras chains ought to be sufficient to make them members in good standing of their respective factions, with perhaps exalted status with Zandalari Empire and Proudmoore Admiralty as their associated factions. I think a separate rep grind would be overly burdensome, though I do think there's a possibility that they'll require all three of the zone-affiliated factions, even if I think that's a bit extreme.

Second Warfront:

Though their rollout was controversial and maybe not too well-timed (giving the Horde a head start on filling out their gear may not have actually had a big effect on the Mythic race, but it doesn't feel great) and there are legitimate questions about their place in the game's overall structure, but I do think they're a fun system that will hopefully show some variety as we get new places to fight over.

I'd love to see new assets as well, rather than re-using garrison ones. If we get a Barrens warfront, maybe a Tauren-vs-Dwarf look?

Some Rework of Azerite Armor:

Azerite Armor is, I think, one of those features that's a bit of a noble failure. It's not like Garrisons, which were sort of the opposite of what players wanted out of them, but it also doesn't excite in the same way that, say, Artifact weapons did. As a replacement for Artifacts, Legendaries, and Tier Sets, they're seriously lacking.

I don't really know how to fix them, but I imagine Blizzard will try, as they're clearly one of the expansion's key features and what that isn't working out in a way that players into, it's a big problem for the expansion.

A Clash Between Zandalar and Kul Tiras:

Apart from a comment in one Horde quest where a Zandalari Troll refers to a Mogu villain as a "worse slaver than the Kul Tirans," despite no evidence within Kul Tiras I've seen that Kul Tirans engage in slavery, there's not much of a conflict between these two naval powers seen in-game. Now that each is part of the two major factions, it seems like we're going to have to have some kind of massive naval battle.

The Horde has engaged in a campaign to instill fear in Kul Tiras and punish them for associating with the Alliance (an act that I think has just pushed them farther into the Alliance's arms) while the Alliance has been engaging in sabotage and targeting high-level Horde leaders in order to subvert their capabilities. I haven't finished the Horde war campaign, but the Alliance one ends with the planting of explosives on major ships in the preparation for an assault on Dazar'alor. The Horde one, as I've read about, appears to involve securing the means to destroy Boralus. It seems to me that these attacks must happen, though I also feel that neither should actually succeed, given how we just got these hubs.

A Hint at What's To Come:

Like Xavius, G'huun does not appear to have a cinematic for his death. Though end-boss cinematics started with Wrath, Legion was the first to have one after every tier-boss. If Azshara is truly the Gul'dan of this expansion, though, we should get a big glossy cinematic to play after her defeat, and that is going to give us a much better idea of where the expansion is going.

There are of course two obvious directions for BFA to go - one that really does focus on the faction war as advertised, and the other that this writer is more excited for, which is a big showdown with master manipulator and ancient primordial evil N'zoth. If N'zoth always managed to turn his defeats into victories, what might the death (or at least defeat) of Azshara do to benefit him?

The Fate of Dazar

The Zandalari Empire was the first true Troll civilization on Azeroth, making it, most likely, the first humanoid civilization on the planet. It was founded by a troll named Dazar, and we see his name pop up a lot in Zandalari. Zuldazar follows the conventions of other imperial capitals like Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman, and the actual urban center of Zuldazar is Dazar'alor, similar to Jintha'alor in the Hinterlands, another stepped settlement. Finally, Atal'dazar is a hidden city of gold in which Dazar's tomb, known as King's Rest, sits. Atal as a prefix appears to denote some sort of high status, like the Atal'ai priests who infamously summoned the evil Loa Hakkar to Zul'Gurub.

In a lot of ways, Zandalar, which was once not an island but a mountain, prior to the flooding that followed the Sundering, is sort of a parallel with Mount Hyjal. Whereas Hyjal is a place where the Night Elves' Ancients gathered, Zandalar is a central meeting point for many Troll Loa.

And given that the Night Elves are descended from Trolls and the Ancients and most Loa are under the umbrella term of "Wild Gods," the two might actually be functionally identical.

Dazar apparently was a great reformer amongst the Trolls. Prior to his intervention, it seems as if the Trolls were largely dominated by the kind of depravity that exists now amongst the Blood Trolls of Nazmir. This culture of barbarism is all a result of the corruption of G'huun, an Old God or Old God-like entity that the Titans had trapped within Uldir for study.

In Battle for Azeroth, the Prophet Zul is revealed to be a servant of G'huun, coordinating the assault by the Blood Trolls, the releasing of Mythrax, and a plot to overthrow King Rastakhan.

After stabbing the King nearly to death and then falling to him in a battle that nevertheless ends in the successful destruction of the Grand Seal - the last piece of Titan equipment that was keeping Uldir running, and around which the urban center of Dazar'alor had been built, Zul seems to be plenty active for a dead guy.

See, a lot of the Troll plots we've had in prior expansions have all been paying off in Zandalar. Not only were Shadra and Rezan sacrificed for power in the same manner that the Drakkari had done to their Loa, but Zul also retained the rituals that his lieutenants had used to raise Lei Shen, the Thunder King, from the dead back in Mists of Pandaria.

Using this ritual, Zul raised Dazar, the First King of Zandalar, as his minion.

We fight him as the final boss in King's Rest.

But here's what's interesting: Dazar is not dead at the end of it. We fight him enough to break him out of his mind-control, at which point he ceases his attacks and becomes friendly. He thanks us for freeing him from Zul's influence and of course offers us a nice box of loot for out troubles.

But that means that the profoundly ancient King Dazar is now... well, not alive exactly, but he's around.

What does that mean for Zandalar? I imagine they're not going to just hand him the crown back, and Rastakhan won't just go back to being a prince. But this is a guy who existed long before the Sundering and probably before the Night Elves even existed.

What might we learn from Dazar? And what might he think about the world he has been awakened into?

Furthermore, what relationship might he have with Bwonsamdi? He's undead, but also, does Rastakhan's deal with the Loa of Death go in both directions? He's bound his line to Bwonsamdi, which seems to force Talanji into the deal. But what of Dazar? Is Rastakhan his direct descendant?

Basically, I want to know if we just leave Dazar to go back to dead-sleep after we leave or if he'll play a part in the future (or perhaps another expansion that, I don't know, maybe has a bit of a "death and undeath" theme?)

King's Rest could have easily ended with us just killing Dazar. Maybe he even thanks us in his dying breaths. But it doesn't. It specifically leaves him kneeling, winded from the fight but not dead.

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist

Well, I'm trying to be better about actually reading through the adventure books I get - I've developed an obsessive need to collect 5e books, but there are a couple, like Storm King's Thunder, that I haven't gotten around to actually reading.

I have no idea when I'd be able to run something in anything other than my grand homebrew setting campaign (or my friend's own homebrew setting) so these are largely for inspiration.

Dragon Heist, the first part of a two-part Waterdeep adventure, is only designed to get players to level 5. But the emphasis is a lot more on living in a city, encouraging players to find nonviolent solutions to problems and kind of detailing what life is like in the Forgotten Realms' classic metropolis.

I definitely think that when you play D&D, I'd guess most players start off with the feeling of wanting to just smash monsters, but once you get into the swing of the roleplaying, just imagining a bustling world that your character inhabits starts to feel pretty appealing.

There's a great deal of variability in this book, with a number of factions you can join that give quick side-quests, and a large part of it involves the party receiving the deed to a tavern that they can use as their base of operations, with plots involving business rivals and a poltergeist who can actually become a friend if you run the business well.

I've just gotten to a chapter that seems to really start things off in earnest, but I really have to say that I love the idea of a campaign set in a giant city. It should pair quite nicely with the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, potentially transferring the setting and replacing, say, the Zhentarim with House Dimir, the Order of the Gauntlet with the Boros Legion, and other similar equivalents.

The second part, Dungeon of the Mad Mage, is the first 5e adventure book that will take players all the way to level 20. This is one massive dungeon, with several layers that have different themes and ecologies.

So, N'zoth is the Final Boss, Right?

I hit revered with Champions of Azeroth today on my main, with only those turtle-folk left before I get Pathfinder part 1, and the quest to get the last (unless it's second to last?) empowerment is fairly interest:

Spoilers to follow.

How Far Back Have the Infinites Gone?

We killed Murozond in the 5-player dungeon End Time way back in the last patch of Cataclysm. That's four expansions ago, and while there have been some out-of-game references to the Infinite Dragonflight, they've largely dried up as a visible threat. Even in the alternate-universe/time-travel expansion, we barely heard a peep from them - the only reference to them was that Kairozdormu seemed to be on the way to becoming such a dragon had Garrosh not killed him.

Indeed, I've got on record saying that I think Warlords' biggest mistake was shying away from the complicated time-travel aspects of the expansion - we didn't see a single person encounter their 35-year-younger doppelganger, for example. Velen died, but it wasn't our Velen, who then got to play an important role in Legion.

Warcraft usually has big threats function as a pretty top-down organization. The Qiraji ceased to be much of anything once we killed C'thun. The Legion seems like it's unlikely to ever be nearly as big of a threat as it was prior to Sargeras' capture.

So it would stand to reason that people might feel that Murozond's death meant the Infinites were no longer a problem.

But you never know with a time traveler.

See, time travel narratives mean that we don't all necessarily have the same sequence of events, and causality can be messed up. We first learned of the Infinites in Burning Crusade, and fought them for three expansions, which in story terms comes out to maybe three years. But Nozdormu is still Nozdormu at the point in time where we are. Sure, given that we've seen at least one alternate timeline (not to mention the End Time, which was a cancelled future where Deathwing had enacted the Hour of Twilight, is certainly "alternate,") it could be that Murozond is not actually "our" Nozdormu. Still, Nozdormu at least seems to think that that's his fate, and is in the very difficult position of having to plan for his own descent into madness and chaos - plans that his future, corrupted self, will have full awareness of.

We have his corruption to look forward to, though we don't know how long from now that will be.

But there's another problem to worry about as well:

How far back to they go?

Again, they're time travelers, which means that even if the Infinite Dragonflight hasn't even been created yet, our past is presumably already infested with them. We've seen them pop up in several points already (the early Caverns of Time dungeons,) but who knows? Maybe there were Infinite Dragons visiting the Black Empire. Maybe they fought against the early Troll empires. They could have set plots in motion eons ago and then caught up with them far later without having to wait.

Here's a tin-foil hat, sort of cribbed from folks like Bellular Gaming and other WoW commentators.

There is apparently a separate Loa of death than Bwonsamdi - possibly his "boss," and also someone who has been put forth as a potential candidate for the Shadowlands entity that took Odyn's eye and taught him how to make the Val'kyr.

This loa is named Mueh'zalla, and is worshipped by the Sandfury/Farraki Trolls (the desert trolls of Tanaris who live in Zul'farrak - represented by the evil General Jak'razet in Vol'dun.) Among his many names, one is the "Son of Time."

Now, that could easily just be a classic connection between gods and symbols of death being associated with time as well.

But let's make the biggest logical reach: Doesn't Mueh'zalla kind of sound like Murozond?

Oh, it's a stretch for sure, which makes this post a clear tin-foil hat one. But if we want to take what is very likely just a coincidental similarity between the two names and read way too into it, what could it imply?

Well, first, we know Odyn didn't trust the dragons, which is why he wanted the Valarjar to serve their function instead, so why would he treat with an evil dragon (or are the infinites chaotic neutral?) Perhaps Murozond was merely disguised - something dragons certainly have a propensity for.

Also, the Infinites have generally been linked with the Old Gods and the Void, whereas this entity seems more of a death-domain being. On the other hand, we've definitely seen Void-related creatures engaging in Necromancy, so it's not unthinkable.

The reason I think this clicks so well is that Odyn's sacrifice of his eye is such an ancient thing, and one that had some nasty repercussions for the world. Helya was able to trap Odyn, which likely led to the corruption of Loken and the chaos in Ulduar that left the world's Titan facilities basically unmanned for tens of thousands of years. So much of Azeroth's history would probably have been very different had Odyn not turned Helya into a Val'kyr, and that seems like the perfect sweet spot for a time-traveling agent of chaos to screw things up.

We're at a point where we're inclined to think of Odyn's actions as so far in the past that it's hard to imagine things going differently. But to a time-traveler, the ancient past's immutability is a falsehood.

Was there a different timeline? One without a Sundering? One in which the Titanforged never fell to the Curse of Flesh?

And here's a tricky question: are we better or worse off?

Warfronts are the Ultimate Catch-Up Mechanic - Provided Your Faction is Attacking

My Rogue hit 120 yesterday and he's already at 325 item level, a perfectly respectable starting point for mythic dungeons and what I would assume is the minimum for LFR (opening tomorrow!)

And I have Warfronts to thank! Between the one-shot quest (presumably coming back each cycle) to get a 370 piece, you get a guaranteed 340 drop every time you complete it. This can include weapon drops, like the 345 warforged dagger I got on my latest run.

The Warfronts take time - using my Lightning Shield on my shaman (which persists through death) as a kind of timer, I found that his last warfront took about 35 minutes - though that's not so bad compared to, say, a mythic dungeon where you aren't guaranteed any drop.

Players are starting to get a feel for the strategy (I imagine a quicker learning curve for the Alliance thanks to those of us who play both sides,) and my most recent run worked like a well-oiled conquest machine.

Naturally, as purely random gear, you might wind up with duplicates (my Shaman on his most recent one got the same belt, though with a gem slot,) and that's obviously going to happen more frequently the more pieces of gear you get.

The timing of this release just before Mythic Uldir comes out does raise some eyebrows, giving Horde guilds a serious leg up on the Alliance in the race for world first, though I'll grant that the past few weeks of mythic dungeons probably allowed most hardcore raiders to get a baseline item level near 340 - the only real issue I see is the guaranteed 370 piece versus a chance at such a thing off Doom's Howl (the Horde azerite tank that Alliance players get to fight when they have control of the zone. The Alliance one that Horde players fight is called Lion's Roar, but they are, I believe, mechanically identical.)

I'm very curious to see how things change as we get different commanders. Currently, the Horde is led by Eitrigg while the Alliance has Danath Trollbane (makes sense - Stromgarde is Trollbane's seat, and this starts us off with a classic Orcs versus Humans feel.) I'm hoping that the different commanders bring significant changes to the units available, rather than being purely cosmetic.

They've talked about having other Warfronts over the course of the expansion. I think that as a kind of PvE battleground, the system has legs, and at least for now the rewards are appealing. I would want to see subsequent Warfronts have different mechanics - capturing important locations and ultimately pushing to the enemy fort is fine, but I'd want to see different things to spend resources on.

Once we're in the thick of the current content, I think the cycle thing won't be as much of an issue, though it'll be tough for those who can't play all that much to find that when they have some free time, their faction is playing the waiting game.

Given the fact that the warfront is an instance, I don't see why we might not eventually have one that is open to both sides - though I get that by putting it on this cycle, it makes it a bit more special.

One thing I'd be concerned about is if, a month or two from now, when enthusiasm for it dies down a bit, the cycle might slow to a crawl as people are less invested in the turn-ins. I hope they'll reduce the amount of materiel (not a typo - it's like material but for military purposes) required to unlock the warfront.

Warfronts!

Well, under Eitrigg's leadership, my Tauren Shaman fought against Danath Trollbane and defeated him, claiming Arathi Highlands for the Horde, surely for generations to come.

Yes, Wafronts! They're live, at least if you're Horde. While the Alliance has had the week to farm rares safely without being PvP flagged (though if you're not in war mode, you're mostly going to come across members of the opposite faction who don't want to kill you, so I was able to do so on the Shaman prior to my Warfront experience.)

For the intro quest (which I assume is a one-time thing, but I could be wrong,) I got a lovely 1-handed axe that warforged up from 370 to 375 - quite an upgrade over my old 310 mace. For completing the Warfront itself, I got a pair of 350 pants, and this, to me, suggests that doing repeated Warfronts in the same week could be very profitable, loot-wise, assuming that this loot is the norm.

The Warfront itself is a really cool idea that I think is implemented... ok.

Largely it feels a lot like the big "event" quests like the Battle for Lordaeron at the expansion's launch. The scenario starts with your fort in shambles, and you have to first secure it and then the nearby lumber mill and mine. For lower-geared characters, you can actually focus a great deal more on farming resources and buying upgrades for the fort while the better-geared engage the enemy. There's a sort of hybrid MOBA RTS feel to it, as you can summon troops to follow you around (two at a time per person.) Capturing various important locations along the way will give you access to new troops and NPCs to help you, and you'll gradually capture each of the key locations between you and the other fort. Once these are all under your control, you'll need to bombard the enemy fort with your siege engines (Demolishers for Horde, I'd assume Siege Tanks for Alliance) until you can make it into the fortress proper. Then it's something of a mad rush to take out the enemy commander, which wins you the battle, giving you an Island Expedition-like victory screen where you get your reward.

There isn't a ton of coordination required - there aren't a ton of enemies who seem to really require a tank as such. It seems that you eventually get to a point where you can't do much to upgrade your fort, so those contributing in the back might have to start pushing toward the front after a while.

I imagine you'll need to have most of the 20-player raid AFK in order to lose, given that your own troops provide a decent amount of resistance to the enemy faction's assaults. Still, the first time was fun, and the rewards are certainly enticing (though I always think a feature should survive on its intrinsic, rather than extrinsic fun.)

I had fun, but I also do wonder how fun it will be to do these over and over. I'll probably run it on my Shaman once again to see if you keep getting 350 gear - I kind of hope you don't, as grinding these over and over to fully kit out your character is probably not the best way to experience them.

Still, as something to do every other week, roughly, it feels pretty good. I am a little concerned that they're going to make the Alliance wait nearly three weeks for it (and as people have pointed out, giving only Horde raiders some guaranteed heroic-Uldir-level gear right before Mythic Uldir opens up is maybe not a great thing for the progression race.)

Après G'huun, le quoi?

Yes, that's a very silly paraphrasing of a line attributed to Louis the XVI, "Après moi, le deluge," meaning "After me, he flood," as in "I really don't care if the whole world is destroyed after I die. It won't affect me."

Anyway, history lesson aside:

With this week's release of Uldir, and the opening of (at least the first part of) Warfronts, not to mention the first PvP season of the expansion, BFA is well and truly in full gear. Next week will see Mythic Uldir and the first raid finder wing.

That's all well and good, but as we WoW players are fond of asking: What comes next?

Blizzard has gotten cagier and cagier about the trajectories of their expansions over the years. There's a practical side of that, of course - a lot of people were really ticked off that instead of the mentioned Utgarde Keep and Gun'drak raids and a full Azjol-Nerub zone, we instead got a revamped Naxxramas as Wrath's first full raid tier (minus two single-boss raids.) When things are still in the early planning phases, it's a good idea to keep them secret so that if you have to dump something for quality or resource reasons, you can do so without a player outburst (and WoW players are known for such things.)

But BFA is sort of exceptional. Before Mists of Pandaria came out, we knew that we'd be fighting Garrosh at the end of it. When Warlords was out, we knew we'd be getting Tanaan Jungle opened up (we also were supposed to get Farahlon, grumble grumble.) And in Legion, while we only found out we were going to Argus at the Blizzcon after its initial release, we had the Tomb of Sargeras waiting there as a clear eventual objective, not to mention a buildup to the Nighthold that was also evident.

In BFA, the only, single thing we know about the rest of the expansion after the current point we're at in its life cycle is that we will be fighting Azshara.

But Azshara will only be to BFA what Gul'dan was in Legion - the boss of the first major raid (though that distinction perhaps means less without tier sets. Can we get tier sets back after we're done with Azerite? I know there are a ton of Paladin sets, but there's only three Demon Hunter ones.)

And even if we know that a fight with Azshara is coming, we still have no word on where we'll fight her.

There's nothing like Suramar to build up a big raid with a long, ongoing story. The whole Dusk Lilly rebellion was a massive quest line that really established a great deal about the Nightborne and the struggle with Elisande's collaboration. But we don't know where we'll face Azshara. Will it be in Kul Tiras? She does seem to have a slightly greater presence there than in Zandalar, and it would be odd for the expansion to end without a raid on that continent. But at the same time, I do wonder how we could fight Azshara anywhere other than Naz'jatar - a place that certainly has not appeared in-game.

Blizzard has been much more hesitant to announce final bosses in recent years. The first three expansions made it very clear who the big bad was (even though Illidan came too soon in the cycle, hence Sunwell Plateau. Also, I'll reiterate: Halion doesn't count. The Lich King was the final boss of Wrath of the Lich King. Halion was the prologue boss to Cataclysm.) Garrosh came as a bit of a surprise - announced a little after the announcement of Mists of Pandaria as a whole, but still well ahead of the 5.4 patch.

But starting with Warlords, things have been more ambiguous. I suspect Grommash had been intended as its final boss, but when they realized that would be two orcs named G. Hellscream in a row (a joke I made back then,) they thought better of it, even if Archimonde kind of came out of nowhere, as did Argus, for that matter.

Now, there are of course plenty of hints in BFA that suggest that we're heading for a confrontation with N'zoth. It would be the most logical conclusion, though I think there could be some hiccups.

For one, while I would be happy to have the faction war play out and resolve itself (maybe permanently, allowing players to run dungeons and such cross-faction? Can a man dream?) I think we might come around to it again.

Here's a proposed arc for the expansion that gives the faction war the spotlight:

We raid Uldir and then, let's say, Naz'jatar. But in Naz'jatar, we learn that N'zoth has nearly broken through to the World Soul and is on the verge of finishing his ancient task and corrupting Azeroth to create his Void Titan.

So we head to Ny'alotha and fight N'zoth, killing him.

In the absence of this greater threat, and the factions decide that there's only one threat left to eliminate: each other. We end with a raid that has us fighting the opposite faction perhaps not killing the other faction's leader but still defeating them, only for the result to be some catastrophe.

Maybe Azeroth dies.

And then we are set up for the next expansion, where we try to fix the problem we created. If I'm lucky, the factions see the error of their ways (or rather, the Horde sees the errors of their ways and the Alliance somehow, some way, finds a way to trust them not to massacre them yet again) and we get a real, long lasting peace (between the factions - by all means keep the zombies and tentacle monsters and demons and evil dragons coming. I've got to have something to kill for loot after all.)

Alternatively, with largely the same building blocks:

We fight Azshara in Naz'jatar.

Then we fight each other in mechanically identical but separate raids, perhaps again defeating but not killing the other faction's leader, or perhaps instead killing a major secondary leader, like Nathanos and Genn (or for more parity, Halford Wyrmbane - though I imagine a lot of Horde players would find killing a guy they regularly defeat in the Isle of Conquest a bit underwhelming.)

But we realize in the end that our fighting has helped N'zoth get free, and in true WoW fashion, we set aside our differences in order to fight the greater threat.

This gives us three raid "tiers," and a full expansion's worth of content.

Blizzcon comes in early November. Is two months of Uldir too long for an announcement?

In Mists and Legion (let's skip over Warlords, shall we?) we generally got information about the next patch (and often a PTR) within a week or two of the release of any major content. Technically this week wasn't a patch, but I could definitely imagine that they're going to want to get started on testing whatever comes next pretty soon (I'm assuming they never want to have an expansion as anemic as Warlords again, so a more Mists/Legion content release schedule is preferable.)

So I imagine that we'll get some sort of PTR relatively soon, likely releasing some new outdoor content like a Nazjatar zone or some big changes to the existing zones to facilitate such content. The actual Azshara raid might be teased, but I think we probably won't get a grand preview until Blizzcon, and during that we might also get some peaks at what comes after Azshara.

An Infusion of Magic in Allied Races

The reason we're getting so many new races this expansion is that each is really a variant of an existing race. Had we only gotten, say, Kul Tiran Humans (which, based on my use of the glyph on pickpocketing that gives you a disguise based on who you pickpocketed, look like they'll just be referred to as "Kul Tiran" for their race) and Zandalari Trolls, some very well might have complained that these were too similar to existing races to be as big of an expansion feature as Draenei and Blood Elves or Worgen and Goblins had been (and Pandaren, though they were the only race released with Mists, also came with a whole class.)

And besides, people have been asking for Dark Iron Dwarves, Mag'har Orcs, and High Elves for ages, and, well, 2/3 ain't bad! (Personally, though they came out of nowhere, I actually really like the Void Elves, and I think they're an interesting jumping off point to explore what the Void really is.) So by introducing all these races en masse, it feels like a significant-enough feature to match something like brand-new races (and with their own racial traits, in a mechanical sense, these are entirely new races.)

Naturally, as someone who has a sentimental attachment toward my 12-year-old characters as well as a reluctance to shell out $25 for race changes, most of these new races are going to wind up being for secondary alts.

But thinking about the races themselves, there's an interesting theme.

All of the Alliance allied races that are currently out are imbued with a sort of inherent magic to them.

The Lightforged Draenei are saturated with the magic of the light - my favorite blue aliens in this case aren't even blue anymore. The Draenei have historically been devout worshippers of the Light, but these people have it as a part of their essence. What does that do for their free will? And will there be an expectation that the Draenei should all undergo the Lightforging process? Velen seems to have become disillusioned with the moral absolutism of the Naaru after what happened between Xe'ra (I can never remember where the apostrophe goes) and Illidan, and while I think his connection to the Light is still strong, I do think he would balk at such a radical action, at least for himself.

The Void Elves have, of course, imbued themselves with the opposite force. There's a ton of stuff that the Void Elves represent politically when it comes to Quel'thalas, but while the Light has for most of WoW been seen as a largely (if not with perfect consistency) good force, the Void has, until recently, always been seen as pure evil - Shadow Priests sort of find themselves in the context of Warlocks, Death Knights, and Demon Hunters as the "using evil to fight evil" category. Fun story: my Priest character (who is a Shadow Priest) is a Blood Elf. It's not clear to me what the Void Elves have done that got them exiled and transformed them physically that this guy hasn't. I like to think that he's just a hypocrite about it. But for the Void Elves, what is everyday life like for them? They've made a home for themselves on the ruins of the planet that Sargeras sliced in half (RIP the Titan Telongrus,) but what insight will they provide the Alliance with when it comes to this volatile and hazardous force?

Then we've got the Dark Iron Dwarves. I'm making an assumption here, but I would imagine that, prior to when Emperor Thaurissan summoned Ragnaros to the Molten Core, the Dark Irons presumably looked a lot more like other dwarves. If you compare the Bronzebeard and Wildhammer Clans, the only real visual difference is the Wildhammers' facial tattoos. But Dark Irons have grey skin, burning hair, and literal fire in their eyes. So I'd guess that Ragnaros transformed them, and that Dark Irons are literally imbued with elemental fire. To be fair, this is one of the better-understood magical forces, but nevertheless, the Alliance can now add "Fire Dwarves" to their roster. (In D&D, the "evil dwarf" variant, the Duergar, are also grey-skinned and more subterranean than their dwarven brethren, but their personalities are practically opposite from the Dark Irons. Duergar are passionless and kind of emotionally empty, fueled only by a kind of compulsive greed, whereas Dark Irons seem to be defined by a kind of emotional overload of fury, debauchery, and anger - which again, makes sense if they're imbued with fire.)

Now, the Kul Tirans, who we expect to be out in 8.1 or some other patch, seem to be the exception here. Other than being a lot burlier than their Stormwind brethren, and having a bit of a different culture (they get Druids. I'm still pissed that Worgen didn't get Paladins, and though we haven't seen Kul Tiran paladins among the NPCs, I feel like there's no reason they shouldn't, as proud members of the Alliance in the Second War.) But yeah, Kul Tirans seem largely to be just other humans, and of course a lot of Kul Tiran NPCs just use the standard human model, so it's more of an opportunity for a different body type.

Now, Horde-side, there's also a fair bit of magic-infusion.

The Nightborne are, of course, as infused with Arcane magic as the Lightforged are with Light and the Void Elves with Void. They've spent ten thousand years feeding off nothing but the arcane. While they are weening themselves off the Nightwell (as it dissipates,) it's not clear if the change is reversible. They of course have a lot in common with the Blood Elves (and thus the Void Elves too, actually,) but the magical addiction the Blood Elves have dealt with was born more out of excess, whereas the Nightborne had nothing else to sustain them for a very long time.

The Highmountain Tauren are also imbued with magic, but it's a subtler and probably less intense saturation. Huln was blessed by Cenarius and given his antlers - the Horns of Eche'ro - as a sign of the demigod's favor. The Highmountain have carried that sign for ten thousand years (man, culture is way more resilient in Azeroth. Name one famous person from ten thousand years ago on earth - though I guess it helps when you have a lot of races that basically don't age.) But I would argue that the Highmountain do carry some intense nature magic within them, even if it isn't as much as the previously mentioned races with their various schools. (Kul Tirans excepted.) We do know that the Tauren were transformed from the Yaungol in a similar way that the Night Elves (who were probably just known as "Elves" back then) were transformed by the Well of Eternity, meaning that technically, the Tauren are actually already a little on the Arcane side (ironic, given their inability to be Mages.)

The Mag'har, of course, are sort of defined by their lack of magical saturation. Granted, the visual similarities between the Blackrock Orcs and the Dark Iron Dwarves makes me wonder if the Blackrock are similarly imbued with elemental fire. The difference being that the Elements of Draenor are actually a lot more explicitly benevolent. Our universe's standard orcs carry Fel taint with them, but the Mag'har (both of Draenor B and the small number from Outland like Garrosh) are only as magical as being the long-since evolved versions of a giant created by Aggramar (which seemed to be not so much a Titanforged creation as a kind of massive elemental.) But that's a distant enough evolution that I'd say the Orcs are just people, and the Mag'har in particular are free of magical definition. Notably, in the Mag'har unlock quests (I have yet to do them - my one Horde 120 isn't even revered with Honorbound yet,) we find that the Draenei have been effectively Lightforging some Orcs, though given the Draenei are zealously trying to convert everyone to the Light (though there's wiggle room on whether the Draenei have truly become insane zealots or if that's just the opinion of the Mag'har,) they see these "Lightbound" as corrupted in a similar way to the Fel-crazed orcs who worked for the Legion.

Finally, we come to the Zandalari. On one hand, it's not entirely explicit, but the fact that these guys have glowing eyes is, I think, noteworthy (then again, standard Draenei do too.) It's clear that the Zandalari have a much closer relationship with the Loa than other Trolls - indeed, Zandalar is kind of the Troll equivalent of Mount Hyjal. But is this the same level of magical infusion that we're seeing with the other allied races? I don't really know. Rastakhan himself is clearly pumped full of Loa juice - first Rezan kept him alive for 200 years (Trolls typically live about the same amount of time as humans, I believe) and now Bwonsamdi has given him some equivalent blessing. Still, I think that if there is any magic running through their veins, it's probably more on the level with the Highmountain Tauren than, say, the Void Elves.

If we compare this with the existing races, I think that you'll see we've got a lot more magic here than previously. Obviously the Undead are sustained entirely through necromancy magic. The Blood Elves have a subtle Fel taint (though the golden eyes now available suggest that this might be getting replaced with the Sunwell's new Holy magic.) Likewise, as previously mentioned, Orcs have a bit of Fel with them still. I'd argue that the Worgen are probably the most suffused with Life magic, given the way that Goldrinn's essence is in inescapable part of them.

So that means we have Life, Light, Fel, Death, Void, and Arcane all represented in different playable races, which actually covers the 6 primal forces in the Warcraft universe.

By the Fires o' Ragnaros!

Well, after a marathon session clearing every world quest in Zandalar, I... was still about 270 reputation short of exalted with 7th Legion. So this morning I took a look at the new world quests, finished a couple, and then promptly returned to Stormwind to get my Dark Iron Dwarves unlocked.

The quests for Dark Irons is actually a bit more involved than I recall the ones for the pre-BFA allied races being.

The Dark Irons are sort of odd, in that they've been a part of Ironforge's population since Cataclysm, when Moira returned and demanded that her adopted people be allowed to return to the heart of Dwarvish culture. But while the Dark Irons have spent plenty of time as sort of unofficial members of the Alliance, with this quest chain you make it official.

You begin by being invited to Blackrock Depths where the Dark Irons are working on forging azerite. However, while you're there, a group of Venture Company goblins show up to raid the place. While you fight them off, you return to the Black Anvil to find that the legendary craftsman's hammer, Ironfoe, has been stolen, and the Venture goons have broken the Black Anvil itself.

In order to fix this central piece of Dark Iron culture, you first need to go chase down those Venture company jerks and take it back, which requires you to run the MOTHERLODE!! dungeon (I did it on Mythic because I still want a shield - no luck on that account - but I think you can run it on normal or heroic for the quest.) You then descend into the Molten Core to retrieve a fragment of the core... sorry a "Fragment O' the Core." From there, you then have to journey to the Firelands and power up the fragment at Ragnaros' seat in Sulfuron Keep, where you encounter some Dark Iron fire cultists who want to somehow revive the Firelord (despite the fact that Shamans established a new Firelord who seems way more friendly than Ragnaros ever was.)

With the core empowered and the leader of the fire cultists, Herald Grimstone, mysteriously vanished, you return to Shadowforge City and use the empowered fragment to mend the Black Anvil.

Having saved one of the Dark Irons' prize possessions, you return to the embassy, where Anduin officially invites Moira to bring the Dark Iron Dwarves in as full members of the Alliance, which she humbly accepts.

And then you get a one-headed Core Hound mount!

Dark Irons look very cool - skin tones are all various shades of grey, and they all have fiery red eyes. Your hair glows at the tips with a kind of burning ember - the Dark Iron colors are very distinctly red, black, and grey. You can also get facial tattoos, including a full-on Imperator Furiosa (and I'm sure we're going to see a lot of female Dark Irons with name variants on her.)

I had initially thought to make a Mage, but I chose instead to go with a Warlock. At lower levels I've had him as Demonology for some early-access AoE for dungeon grinding, but my intention is to make him primarily a Destruction Lock - this is one Warlock where I actually might think his spells look more appropriate without green fire. In only about an hour and a half of play, I've gotten him to 26, meaning he has Rain of Fire, so I might just have him stick with Destruction for the rest of his leveling.

While the pre-BFA allied races requires you to get to 110 for heritage sets, it appears that the new ones all require 120, so it'll be a while before I get his blocky Dark Iron plate-like armor (part of my motivation for choosing a cloth class was the incongruity of having a squishy clothy look like he's clad in plate.)

Probably the most notable Dark Iron racial ability is the Mole Machine, which has a 30 minute cooldown and lets you transport to various important locations. By default, you'll have Ironforge, Stormwind, and Blackrock Depths (the little starting area like Telogrus Rift for Void Elves, not the middle of a hostile dungeon.) There are apparently Mole Machines you can find all over the world, and these will get added to the list of places you can teleport to.

Forsaken Identity is Built on a Lie

My favorite Horde race and possibly my favorite race in the whole game (despite being more and more committed to the Alliance over the years) is the Undead. My mom used to be head of our local "Area Council," which organized events in our neighborhood, such as Village Day at the beginning of the summer (right around my birthday, usually) when local restaurants and merchants would set up booths in the street and everyone would come out to enjoy the festivities. She also ran the annual Halloween party in the gym of an elementary school that closed in the '80s and had become our local community center.

Anyway, I have loved Halloween since I was a little kid, and who is more Halloween-y than the Undead? (The Worgen might have them tied.)

When WoW started, the Undead were sort of the odd men out in the Horde. While Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren were all tied together by a shamanistic culture (one that, at least in those days, Thrall was trying to emphasize over the more brutal warrior culture that had previously defined the Horde - it didn't seem to last,) the Undead were explicitly there as an alliance of convenience - indeed, Western Horde characters got a slight boost to reputation with their fellow Kalimdor-based home cities, but started out Neutral with Undercity, and vice versa.

As an undead player, the story you got was one of being caught between a rock and a hard place - on one side, you had the Scourge - every worst thing you could imagine about a ravenous undead blight, its footsoldiers (whom you were doomed to join if you fell to them) were mindless zombies, but the leadership was cunning and cruel. As one of the free-willed Undead now called Forsaken, you had managed to escape that zombie-like fate by pure dumb luck, but your home was in ruins and under constant siege by this menace.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, you had the Scarlet Crusade, a fundamentalist sect of zealots who were dedicated to eradicating all undead - whether they be mindless Scourge or people like you, namely an ordinary person who just happened to have a horrific affliction.

Now, I don't mean to make the Forsaken of the pre-Cataclysm world out to be totally good guys - they were already testing their plague on living prisoners and fighting to wipe out human towns in order to expand their territory.

Why, though? Why did these former humans turn on their own kind?

We're told in Chronicle that in the early days of the Forsaken, they sent emissaries south to other human lands like Stormwind to try to secure their place back in the Alliance. After all, most Forsaken were former citizens of Lordaeron. If they could get recognized by the Alliance as such, they'd have formidable allies in the fight against the Scourge, many of whom were old friends and even family.

But those emissaries never made it.

Now, we're never told what happened to them. Chronicle leaves that vague. But it's clear that the Forsaken concluded that the emissaries were killed because they looked like Scourge, and the Forsaken then oriented their behavior in a purely antagonistic direction toward humanity.

If there's one uniting ethos to the Forsaken, it's the idea that the Alliance will never accept them for who they are, and that has given them the justification to commit acts of horrific barbarism. While I think most members of the Horde would settle for the Alliance submitting to them, the eventual Forsaken gameplan is to kill all humans and raise them as undead. They believe the only way to see eye-to-eye with humanity is for all of them to be undead.

And to be clear: there are certainly exceptions, and I imagine you might think your Undead character has a different attitude. My Rogue certainly does, thinking that it would be a lot easier if he could work for both sides, doubling his potential customers. But Sylvanas has certainly taken this attitude when it comes to humanity, and many Forsaken follow her without question.

But the thing about this attitude is that it's demonstrably wrong.

Not only have we had figures like Alonsus Faol or Leonid Bartholomew who have been not only welcomed back among humans but actually given important positions in Light-based organizations, but we also saw that average Alliance citizens were willing to reach out to and embrace their undead family members at the peace summit in Arathi Highlands in Before the Storm.

Many of these Forsaken decided to try to return home with their living family, making their way to Stromgarde. It wasn't the Alliance that stepped in and stopped them - it was Sylvanas who ordered them shot.

See, here's the problem: Sylvanas' entire claim to authority over the former citizens of Lordaeron is based on the idea that she shares more with them than the living do. She might be a foreigner form Quel'thalas, but she has gone through the same curse of undeath and rebirth of free will that the rest of the Forsaken have experienced.

The Desolate Council never intentionally threatened her authority, but the implication of what they demonstrated - that the Forsaken and living humans could, in fact, get along - undercut the entire narrative that she built her empire on.

For those loyal to Sylvanas and her vision of the Forsaken gradually replacing humanity, the possibility of peace with the living could undo that entire ethos. The very identity of the Forsaken would be called into question, and their status as members of the Horde and certainly as loyal subjects to the Banshee Queen could easily dissolve in a matter of days.

So it behooves Sylvanas to maintain the narrative at all costs. Dissenters have to be silenced and any prospect of peace needs to be sabotaged. As she sees it, this is the only way to maintain her position and save herself and her people from the oblivion she fears.

It all requires the strict adherence to a vicious lie.

What Monsters I Want to See in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica

We're still a bit over two months out from the release of Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. As a sourcebook like Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide or the digital Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron, I mainly expected GGtR to be background on the world, a few new races and class options, and that'd be it. Apparently, while it will include a bunch of those, it will also apparently have a ton of monsters - one interview said that it would have approximately as many as Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, which, you know, is basically Monster Manual 3 for fifth edition.

Now, I played Magic long, long before I ever played D&D, and so there are some creatures that I'm familiar with that I would love to see in a D&D context.

Not all creatures from Magic show up in all sets - there's very little to do with Phyrexia in Ravnica, for example - but there are a lot of interesting elements that I hope to see touched on in GGtR.

Thrulls:

Thrulls were introduced in Fallen Empires, a booster pack of which was the very first Magic product I got. These creatures are unholy amalgamations of dead flesh that has been reconstituted into a living creature that is bred specifically to be sacrificed.

In Ravnica, the Orzhov Syndicate serves as the plane's church, but is a thinly-veiled mafia-like organization that bleeds money from the citizenry in order to enrich themselves. Members of the Orzhov are often granted a second life of sorts as a ghost after their death - the leaders of the Orzhov are an oligarchical council of ghosts - but the physical remains of its people are often transformed into Thrulls that serve as messengers, servants, and enforcers for the Syndicate.

Back in Fallen Empires, set on a different plane, Thrulls actually rebelled against the dark cult that created them, and so I could certainly imagine a story hook in which the party is contacted by an Orzhov priest whose Thrulls have gone feral.

Vampire variants:

Ravnica is meant to have a quasi-central/eastern European vibe to it (it's kind of Prague-like,) and so vampires play a rather large role in the setting. House Dimir, the clandestine illuminati-like organization that has eyes and ears everywhere and likes to control information, was founded by a vampire named Szadek. While Szadek seems to have a largely humanoid appearance, there are other creatures like the Moroii who look far more alien. And vampires of the Dimir guild often feed not on blood, but on thoughts, so having some kind of psychic vampires would make a lot of sense in this setting.

Weirds:

We have the Water Weird in the Monster Manual, but pushing for greater diversity among elementals in Ravnica would seem like a good call - especially due to the reckless experimentation of the Izzet League. Weirds might kind of straddle the line between Elemental and Aberration (though less of the Lovecraftian variety and more of the experiment-gone-wrong type.)

Horrors:

There are a lot of nasty things that stalk the undercity - whether they be mind-sucking creatures employed by the Dimir, insectoid garbage-processors used by the Golgari Swarm, or even the bizarre Nephilim.

Lots of New Humanoids:

Ravnica is bringing in a lot of new playable races, like Minotaurs, Centaurs, Vedalken, Simic Hybrids, and Viashino. It would make sense to have some pre-fab NPC statblocks worked out for these.

Warfronts: Hurry Up and Wait

So, on one hand, I think the revamped Arathi Highlands in which the Warfronts take place is gorgeous. The quests there, while simplistic, reward a boat-load of war resources, which is something that the past few weeks of the expansion have kept a bit on the rare side.

But if you're looking for my impressions of Warfronts, you'll have to wait.

While one side controls Arathi Highlands, the other has many turn-in quests that progress them to the point where they can start their battle. Currently, the Alliance controls it, which means the Horde now has a number of resource-gathering daily quests.

I don't know exactly how long this phase is meant to last, but my biggest question is how long the actual battle will be available. The battle itself seems to be the headliner of the feature, of course, and rewards what is, for now, quite impressive gear. I have a quest on my Alliance characters to complete a Warfront, but we will have to wait through every phase of the cycle before we get to actually do that - we need the Horde to gather resources, then to win the battle, then for us to gather resources, and then we'll finally be able to battle.

By necessity, these phases ought to last a while - maybe a week each - so that players can participate in them. What this means, however, is that the Alliance is going to be waiting for nearly a month before they can actually participate in the battle.

And I don't know how long that window will be open.

Time-gating is nothing new with World of Warcraft - it's meant to give players something to do after the initial release of content as well as discouraging players from simply grinding things for several straight days right as new content releases.

So it's possible that over time, we'll get used to this cycle. Still, as one of the major features of BFA, I feel like there could have been a better introduction to the feature.

Everything Opened Today!

The biggest event today in World of Warcraft was the opening of Uldir, the first raid for the Battle for Azeroth expansion. Normal should be dropping 355 loot while Heroic drops 370. Mythic Uldir launches a week from today, along with the first LFR tier, which will drop 340 loot (perhaps less exciting if you've been doing Mythic dungeons, but still worthwhile unless you're armed to the teeth already. Also, a good way to see the raid if your guild isn't quite there yet. Plus, purple-toned weapons and armor!)

World Bosses are up as well, with the big C'thrax dude in Stormsong Valley, who is relatively easy to get to if you have any sort of water-walking mount. There's a Horde flight point that I think is actually closer to him than the nearest Alliance one. This guy drops 355 gear (I was lucky enough to get the trinket on my Death Knight.)

The other huge thing is that Warfronts are now open, though the actual Warfront itself is not yet, as the Horde is currently in a resource-gathering stage. Much like the Ahn'qiraj war effort from back before even I had started playing (I'm pretty sure Naxxramas-40 had already opened before I made my first character,) you'll be able to turn in various gathered materials from professions in order to speed up the eventual battle for the Horde to take over Arathi Highlands. These net you some Honorbound reputation, which should help in the quest to complete your war campaign and unlock those Mag'har Orcs.

Meanwhile, the Alliance has access to Arathi already, which has a number of quests that reward huge amounts of war resources, as well as a piece of 340 gear and big chunks of Azerite. But the biggest advantage to having control is that you get access to an additional World Boss: Doom's Howl (when Horde controls the place it will be Lion's Roar, but they're clearly mechanically identical and even look similar.) This boss drops 870 gear (and here I was lucky enough to replace an 830 trinket with the 870 one on my Paladin main.)

At the moment, the quests that reward all these resources and the gear appear to be one-per-account, though I suspect this is a bug (my guess is that, like Island expeditions, they only have you do the intro quest once per account, but that they may have accidentally put these quests under the same umbrella.)

Hopefully those quests will be made available to alts, because at about 200 war resources a pop (the world bosses also have world quests associated with them that reward 250,) suddenly the dearrth of war resources no longer seems like such a burden, and I can actually imagine eventually getting those later research goals done.

Oh, and one last thing:

Arathi Highlands, or at least the version of it where the Warfronts take place, looks amazing. They've totally rebuilt it, with modern terrain textures and ambient environmental details. The Witherbark village has some Zandalari assets. The elemental circles are updated. Just the grass and hills and everything looks a lot more detailed and vibrant. It makes me sort of wish they'd do a gradual zone-by-zone clean-up of the Old World and put max-level content there.

Kul Tiras Feels More Like Enemy Territory than Zandalar

It's ironic, but the Zandalari Empire has very little territory truly under its control. It still feels imperial thanks to the reverence that the other Troll Empires pay to it - we encounter Farraki, Gurubashi, and Amani trolls who live in their own enclaves within Zuldazar.

But King Rastakhan's influence pretty much ends at the border with Nazmir. Nazmir feels mostly like a deadly wilderness with only ruins to inhabit, because, well, it is. Apparently, lorewise, Nazmir was not too different from Zuldazar before the Cataclysm - the rise of the Blood Trolls and the swampification of what had been more of a serene jungle all happened thanks to Deathwing. Nazmir sank, allowing sea-water to flood into the area and presumably kill a lot of the less resilient plant life. Of course, I'd also assume that Deathwing's destruction helped to weaken the integrity of Uldir, allowing G'huun's influence to spread through not just Zul, but all the blood trolls. Vol'dun has been in a state of devastation for a lot longer, and has served as a kind of Australia-like prison colony where outlaws in Zuldazar are shipped as punishment for their crimes and to protect the law-abiding citizens of the capital. Still, it's shocking that they can even get exiles through Nazmir safely enough for them to die in the desert, and it also by definition puts Vol'dun beyond Rastakhan's reach.

Indeed, neither Vol'dun nor Nazmir really have any permanent strongholds for the Zandalari Empire, at least until we show up.

What's interesting about this is that that makes it feel less like trespassing to come there as an Alliance player. While locations around Zuldazar certainly give a sense that you need to remain clandestine (in fact, the last part of the 8.0 War campaign for the Alliance climaxes in a desperate effort to prevent intelligence of the Xibala camp from getting back to Dazar'alor,) going to Nazmir or Vol'dun doesn't feel all that much different from any other zone we've visited with hostile monsters.

But Kul Tiras is different. Now, clearly, it's got problems that the Alliance player spends their leveling experience resolving. Of the three noble houses that serve the Proudmoores, the only one who is present and available is secretly plotting to overthrow Katherine. Lady Waycrest has become Gorak Tul's puppet in using death magic to take revenge against the Kul Tirans while Lord Stormsong has succumbed to Azshara's void magic and has trapped the legendary Kul Tiran fleet using his Tidesage magic.

But nonetheless, Kul Tiras really does feel like a unified whole - the isolation of various parts of the kingdom feels like a very new thing, and one gets the sense that guard patrols cross the boarders with some regularity. Someone in Fallhaven going to do business in Bridgeport is probably seen as the most natural thing in the world.

And this, I think, contributes to the feeling as a Horde player in Kul Tiras that you are really in enemy territory. Now, part of this I'm sure is that I'm more of an Alliance player (though my main Shaman, Rogue, and Priest are all Horde,) and so I've spent more time in Kul Tiras. But while there's a threat of being discovered by Zandalari patrols and military forces in Zandalar for the Alliance, in Kul Tiras, it seems as if any random traveling merchant or farmer could stumble upon your camps - during the first level-cap quests for the Horde War Campaign, you claim a lodge in the hills of southern Tiragarde Sound that I could very easily imagine stumbling into as a Kul Tiran.

The Horde's biggest base by far in Kul Tiras is Warfang Horde in the northern hills of Stormsong Valley (interestingly, this is where one of the major quest chains for leveling Alliance players comes to a climax, where you actually hijack a goblin mech and torch the base, though it clearly doesn't take.) It's ironic to me that when Horde players arrive here, it's a pre-established base and Rexxar encourages you to reclaim "our lands." The notion that the Horde feels a sense of ownership of this part of Kul Tiras is very strange to me (also the fact that Jaina's return is what got him to fight the Alliance - and you wonder why Jaina has trust issues when it comes to the Horde.)

But that's kind of the weirdness of this expansion (and I don't mean weird in a bad way.) Every expansion after vanilla, barring new races' starting zone, every zone was equally Alliance and Horde territory (except for Warlords' Frostfire Ridge and Shadowmoon Valley, which was kind of a proto-experiment in what Battle for Azeroth has done.)

The truth is that, in fact, all six zones are there for players of both sides. But because of the difference in leveling experience gives each continent a very distinct feel.

On the other hand, given that we're still early enough in the expansion that leveling our characters still feels like a significant chunk of the time we've put into it, perhaps as things go on it will feel less strange. I even wonder if part of the plot of the expansion will see the Blue-ness of Kul Tiras and the Red-ness of Zandalar blur into purple. I haven't finished the 8.0 Horde war campaign yet, but it seems as if both end with major preparations for an attack on the other continent's capital city. I doubt that we'll see the territories truly traded, but I do wonder if more substantial presences will form for each faction in their "opposite" continent.

Still, the experiences don't feel totally parallel. One thing I found really interesting is that, when establishing the first Horde base in Tiragarde Sound, you actually recruit some human pirates to mutiny and make their little port into Horde territory. Are these humans now part of the Horde? And if not, do they know what they've gotten themselves mixed up in? Indeed, would it even be possible for the Horde to allow humans to join it?

One thing I've always kind of wondered is what the Horde sees as the ideal conclusion to their war on the Alliance. The Alliance seems to basically not want their cities destroyed and not have their people killed, and they've generally been ok with leaving the Horde their own territories (they even just packed up and left Orgrimmar after the combined effort to oust Garrosh. I bet the Night Elves in particular wish they'd done more there.)

So an Alliance victory seems to be to end Horde aggression, though given the periodic flare-ups that arise despite efforts at peace, they might feel that the Horde itself as an organization has to go, and that individual deals must be made with the Horde's former constituent members.

But the Horde either doesn't think much about the future or they're totally ok with genocide. Remember that the attack on Teldrassil was step one in a plan Saurfang was devising to destroy Stormwind. But say the Horde secures total victory in a war against the Alliance? What then? After Teldrassil, any Alliance races are going to be very skeptical that they'll receive any mercy if they surrender. Certainly people like Sylvanas would simply consider genocide the price they pay for peace, but I imagine most of the Horde would not want to take it that far.

But that raises the question: what does the Horde actually wish to achieve in this war?