Thursday, April 5, 2018

Battle for Azeroth Drops August 14th

I think this is the earliest we've ever gotten an expansion in the 2-year cycle. Battle for Azeroth will be arriving very much in the middle of summer, only four months from now.

Playing on the Alpha, I'm eager to see how the expansion progresses.

My general impressions of the Alpha are perhaps mixed - there is clearly a new design philosophy regarding quests. Zone stories, depending on the zone, are far less linear, which gives you more of an open-world gameplay design - with the good and bad that comes with it. The good, of course, means that you can really choose where you want to go and what you want to do. The bad, I think, is that the zones feel a bit less unified in the stories they're telling.

Now granted, the only zone I've really completed is Drustvar (although apparently I actually missed a side quest chain involving pirates) and that does, in fact, have a pretty solid story throughout. Tiragarde and Stormsong Valley feel a bit more disjointed, but again, some people might prefer that, as it gives you the freedom to choose what kind of questing you want to do and where.

I have not seen as much of Zandalar, but I have done a bit of each zone (though only a few quests in Zuldazar and Vol'dun.) I do think Zandalar shows greater environmental variation, but I can't really judge it on story compared to Kul Tiras.

At this point, there's plenty of content that works fine, but when it comes to voice acting and cinematics, it's clear that there's polish left to be applied.

Anyway, the other thing to think about is that we now know how much time we have left for Legion stuff. Obviously most will still be accessible later on, but there are a few things (I'm thinking primarily challenge artifact appearances) that are going away. I got Kruul down to 10% one time! Must keep trying!

Now, the fact that BFA drops in August means we're likely to see the pre-patch in July or even late June.

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