The Tank Threat Nerf

Hey, if you've been DPSing or Healing, have you noticed yourself pulling aggro in groups more these days? If you've been tanking, have you noticed that it's harder to get threat on enemies who are wailing on your DPS?

Well, there's a reason for that: tank threat has been nerfed by about two-thirds.

The history of tank threat is kind of interesting, and we've actually been here before:

In Vanilla, BC, and Wrath, tanks had various abilities and such that would increase threat they dealt. Warriors had Defensive stance, Paladins had a buff called Righteous Fury. Druids had Bear form (and Dire Bear form at 40 to go along with Warriors and Paladins upgrading from Mail armor to Plate) and Death Knights, the new guys on the block back then, got Frost Presence, because it was actually Frost that was initially envisioned as the tanking spec for the class. (During Wrath, all three specs could tank or DPS, though Blood emerged as the preferred tanking spec while Frost turned more toward DPS, which meant you often had Blood DKs using Frost Presence and Frost/Unholy DKs using Blood Presence - Unholy Presence was seen more as the "PvP" presence.)

And these buffs generally increased threat by a modest amount - I know Paladins actually only got a buff to the threat of their holy damage, which, granted, was most of their damage. I don't recall the actual boost, but it was probably only doubled at most.

The thing is, tanks used to be sort of oddly focused - the idea was that you geared for survival and played for threat. There were defensive abilities and indeed cooldowns, but you mostly relied on your healers to keep you alive. Wrath saw particularly spiky damage (mitigated in the last tier, where they threw a debuff on avoidance that was actually an excuse to lower damage in general, leading to smoother damage intake.) But a tank's main priority was maintaining threat on enemies, and you had to fight the DPS to do that. In BC, Paladins actually had a practically mandatory buff for all DPS called Blessing of Salvation, which significantly lowered the threat they generated (and this was when Blessings were long-term buffs, meant to be constant.)

In Cataclysm, things started to change a bit. There was no "Active Mitigation" model as we had starting in Mists, but they sought to make tanking a bit easier by hugely buffing tank threat. This came in two stages as I recall, to the point where pulling off a tank was a herculean effort for DPS (one that they weren't supposed to do anyway.) Tanks, having tons of threat for free, actually avoided any and all DPS stats, including hit and expertise, meaning that tanks would actually miss with a ton of their attacks, but didn't matter, because the ones they did hit with would generate all the threat they needed.

This didn't feel great, though, and in Mists, we saw probably the biggest reimagining of how tanks worked. Death Knights were actually ahead of the game - when Blood was made the true tanking spec and Mastery was introduced, Death Knights now had this core rotational ability that would heal them for an amount similar to what a Warrior or Paladin would mitigate via blocking for the past few seconds, and then get their absorption shield based on that healing and their mastery.

So Death Knights were already kind of "playing to survive," and this meant that being able to actually hit the target made them more resilient (I think that during Cataclysm, Death Strike would do its heal regardless of whether you hit or not, to keep it in line with other tanks.) Anyway, generating the resources to use those active mitigation abilities became a priority, which made hit and expertise attractive again. In fact, we got to a point where Paladins actually wanted haste rather than traditional dodge or parry rating (something I kind of panicked about on this very blog - I think the one comment I ever got was someone expressing the internet's typically polite and sensitive criticism of my stance.)

In Warlords, things shifted again with the removal of both hit and expertise (essentially giving us the cap for them baseline) and also ridding us of dodge and parry ratings, so that we would simply use the standard secondary stats (except for bonus armor, to be found only on rings, trinkets, and necklaces.) Legion rid us even of those stats, and so we're now in a state where tanks are using the same stats as DPS.

The thing is, until BFA, we still had those Cataclysm-era threat buffs. The idea back then was that as tanks focused more on defensive stats, they'd fall farther and farther behind in damage and thus threat. But with the same stats being used, we've kept pace a lot better with DPS.

As such, they've decided to remove those buffs.

In a lot of ways, this feels a bit like bowling with gutter bumpers, only for the bumpers to be taken away. The "game" of maintaining threat was set aside in favor of other games - positioning and focusing on survival. And I do think that those latter challenges to tanking have, in fact, gotten more complicated. There were a lot more fights back in the day when the tank could simply plant their feet. But now we have to be a lot more conscious of threat.

Given the current environment, when Mythic dungeons are as far as one can get, trash is a big concern. I've definitely wiped more to trash than bosses in dungeons. And it's typically in trash fights where threat is the hardest to maintain - DPS will often ignore which target you're attacking, even if you mark them, and it's very easy to have just gotten a pack under control when someone gets knocked back into another pack and pulls them. (There are also way more enemies who flee in fear than there have been since, like, vanilla.)

So I would definitely say that tanking is harder now than it was in Legion. Is it too hard? I don't really think so, but I'm also someone who has been tanking for like eleven years, and it's a role that I find very rewarding, but a lot of players are sort of scared off by it. I don't know how to encourage more people to play tanks, but I don't think this change will get a lot of people to sign up.

It's certainly not the end of the world, but unfortunately I think that it's going to take longer for DPS to learn to manage their aggro.

Also, having run Freehold on my Havoc Demon Hunter with a Monk tank, can I just please ask that Ox Statue only aggro enemies already in combat? We pulled like every mob within a mile of us every time that damned thing went down.

Questions about Ahn'Qiraj and Ahn'Kahet

The Old Gods were first explicitly introduced in World of Warcraft, though there were strong hints to their presence in The Frozen Throne, when Arthas fought through Azjol-Nerub and encountered what was likely some appendage of Yogg-Saron or one of the monstrous growths like we see in Twilight Highlands and during the Dragon Soul raid. But our first bona fide Old God introduced in any Warcraft game was C'thun (interestingly, there's a Stephen King story involving a similarly Lovecraftian entity known as C'thun, both clearly being references to the most famous of Lovecraft's creations, Cthulhu.)

Silithus was basically C'thun's front yard, and there were some suitably eerie elements there - I particularly liked the obelisk-like structures that began to break down and float the closer you got to Ahn'qiraj. Ahn'qiraj appears as a desert ruin with elements of Egyptian and Mesopotamian architecture that plays well into the Lovecraftian vibe - even if Cthulhu's lair was in an underwater city that occasionally rose from the depths, the idea of stretching back to the oldest known civilizations and the desert-like environments they sprang from to place your eldritch horrors is something he played with. Indeed, the author of his in-universe book that details all these strange creatures, the Necronomicon, is Abdul Alhazred, the "Mad Arab" (and that's very mild on the scale of racist things Lovecraft said, sadly.)

The character of Alhazred actually fits pretty well into a kind of Twilight's Hammer context for WoW - he went into the desert and started worshipping these beings and eventually wrote a book called "Al Aziz," translated theoretically as the buzzing sound of insects, but also as sort of ghostly whispers - the story being that he didn't so much write the Necronomicon (the later title for Al Aziz) as record the whispers he was hearing.

Anyway, it wasn't until Chronicle Vol. 1 that we really got details about what it was like when the Old Gods ruled over Azeroth. This "Black Empire," actually saw massive cities built around the enormous forms of the Old Gods. Given that they are implanted into the very crust of the world, it stands to reason that these cities must have been where we find the Old Gods today. To be fair, given my interpretation that the Old Gods are nearly the size of continents, it's possible that they could manifest their "heads" in different locations - I don't really know much about Old God anatomy.

Still, I think the most logical interpretation is that wherever we've found Old Gods, that was also where their cities stood.

Chronicle also said that each of the Old Gods was trapped in a Titan facility, suggesting these were built up around the Old Gods where they were. Ulduar is very obviously titanic in nature, and its function as both prison and command center for the whole planet (which, um, Titans, was that such a good idea?) makes it one of the clearest repositories of Titan knowledge and demonstrations of Titan (and Titanforged) activities on the planet.

Beneath Northrend, however, we see Azjol-Nerub (sadly not as much as they had originally brainstormed - it was meant to be a whole zone, but I think they had trouble figuring out the whole underground aspect of it.) Azjol-Nerub is the realm of the Nerubians, who are one of the Aqir races created by the Old Gods. Ironically, we actually meet some Nerubians who wish us to defeat the Faceless Ones inhabiting their Old City - Azjol-Nerub, the dungeon, is entirely held by the Scourge under Anub'arak, while Ahn-Kahet, the Old Kingdom, is a mix of Scourge to start and then Twilight's Hammer and Faceless Ones further in.

It seems unlikely that Nerubians, an Aqir race who were supposedly born from the Old Gods directly, would turn against the Faceless (or "N'raqi") who had the same origin. I do have a vague and underdeveloped theory that the insectoid Aqir races were born of Y'Shaarj and C'thun while the cephalopod-like N'raqi were born of Yogg-Saron and N'zoth, but who knows? The Old Gods do love conflict, after all, so it could be as simple as that.

Anyway, one thing I wonder about is the the name Ahn'Kahet. Clearly, this follows a similar naming convention to Ahn'Qiraj. We're told Ahn'Kahet is the "Old Kingdom," which perhaps distinguishes it from Azjol-Nerub.

Chronicle suggested that Ahn'Qiraj was another Titan facility meant to imprison C'thun. But first off, Titan facilities seem to always be "Uld"-something (the dying Titanforged watcher in the Heart Chamber where you get the Heart of Azeroth seems to be aware of containment breaches in many Uld-locations, including the ones we've seen like Uldaman, Ulduar, Uldum, and soon Uldir, but also some others (though I think one of them, maybe Uldaz, is actually just another part of Storm Peaks.)

Now that we know the term "Black Empire," and we've seen images of it in both Chronicle and in the Warbringers: Azshara short, I'm beginning to suspect that Ahn'qiraj is actually a preserved portion of that Empire.

C'thun is locked behind the Scarab Wall along with his empire, and so perhaps the idea was simply to wall them off. I believe that if you work out the internal structure of the raid with the outdoor version of it, there's a giant domed building which ought to house C'thun's "head." Perhaps before the Titans defeated him, C'thun once rose high above this spot to survey its vast territories.

That could suggest that Ahn'Qiraj was basically "C'thun Town" at the time of the Black Empire.

Furthermore, perhaps Ahn'Kahet was "Yogg-Saron Town." But one thing that's strange about that is that Ahn'Kahet is about half a continent away from where we know Yogg-Saron's "head" to be. It is of course possible that not every "Ahn" city was built around an Old God's... most important protrusion above ground is the best way I can describe it. Alternatively, maybe Yogg-Saron was just that ridiculously huge, or perhaps the Titans really kind of moved him/it when imprisoning the Fiend with a Thousand Faces.

If Y'Shaarj had an "Ahn" city, it's likely that it was destroyed when the God of Seven Heads was torn out of the planet. But whatever might have been left of it would likely have been built over by the Dark Trolls before their transformation into the Night Elves.

This raises an interesting question, then: if, as I have theorized, we're going to be going to see N'zoth this expansion, what exactly will we find in its vicinity?

N'zoth presumably inhabits Ny'alotha, but this follows neither the Uld- nor the Ahn'- nomenclature we've seen affiliated with Old Gods. N'zoth is the schemer of the Old Gods, and so it's possible that it/he/whatever has somehow altered the environment into something totally new. Does N'zoth even have an Aqir-like race to serve him? It would seem that the Mantid served Y'shaarj, the Nerubians maybe served Yogg-Saron, and the Qiraji served C'thun. But rather than an Aqir race, N'zoth seems to have made his servants from the Elves, creating the Naga. Might we then find some place called "Ahn'Naga?"

Zones per Expansion

Each expansion has added new zones to the world of Warcraft (I'd say Azeroth, but not all the zones are on that planet.) Typically we get these in the form of a new "continent" which are all one shared space seamlessly connected to one another. With BFA, we've got two new continents, though each is sort of a mini-continent with only three zones a piece, collectively forming an expansion-sized territory.

World of Warcraft gave us a pretty enormous world when it first launched, with 18 in Kalimdor and 22 in the Eastern Kingdoms (two of which, The Barrens and Stranglethorn Vale, would be divided into two zones each in Catalcysm) for a total of 40. No expansion would hit that number again, but given that there were three zones per faction dedicated to characters just starting out and that vanilla WoW needed space to go from 1 to 60, it makes sense they'd have so much territory.

Burning Crusade gave us 12 zones, with four created for Draenei and Blood Elf characters to level up to 20, seven zones in Outland for leveling from 58 to 70, and then finally the Isle of Quel'danas to house the Sunwell Plateau raid and daily quests for players at the cap.

Wrath of the Lich King has a couple of more arguable zones - for example, does the expansion to the Scarlet Enclave in Eastern Plaguelands (made for the Death Knight starting quests) count (I'm going to rule no) or what about the minuscule Hrothgar's Landing, which was only there for a handful of daily quests at the Argent Tournament and that you probably forgot existed? (I'm actually going to count that one, as it's a separate area with its own map.) We also got Wintergrasp, which served primarily as an outdoor battleground rather than a true questing zone, though I'll count it. So, with all that totaled, we have 10.

Cataclysm saw a major revamp of the old world, creating the Southern and Northern Barrens as well as dividing Strangelthorn Vale between Northern Stranglethorn and the Cape of Stranglethorn. But in terms of all-new zones, we got 8. Granted, you could argue that Vashj'ir was actually three zones, divided similarly to how Stranglethorn Vale was, but I'm going to count it as one. (Given that I'll be counting Argus as three, you could argue I'm being inconsistent, but oh well.) Some zones can't be returned to, like Kezan and the Lost Isles, but with places on the map and full quest experiences, I'll count them. We also of course had the Molten Front, which you could also argue as its own zone and not simply part of Hyjal, so perhaps the real number is 9.

Mists of Pandaria's zones are a lot less controversial, though we get another Hrothgar's Landing like zone in the Isle of Giants, which to be fair did hold a world boss. We had the Wandering Isle for new Pandaren characters (like Kezan and the Lost Isles, it was a place you couldn't return to, at least until Legion, when Monks got to go back there for their Order Hall. Not a Monk, though? Too bad.) In total, it comes to 10.

Warlords of Draenor is the only expansion where we didn't get any new types of characters - no new races, no new classes, which means that the entirety of the expansion was focused on the main event, as it were. Draenor had a total of 8 zones, including Ashran, the last of the battleground-zones (though built less for climactic battles and more for continuous PvP) so far and Tanaan Jungle, which was in-game, sort of, but inaccessible except for the intro scenario until 6.2.

Legion gets complicated. Many classes' order halls were in different locations, such as Marduum or Dreadscar Rift. We also had, sort of in the tradition of Hrothgar's Landing, the outdoor version of Eye of Azshara, which did occasionally have World Quests but whose main story was really told in the dungeon version. Still, with its own map, we'll count it. We also got Argus later on, and while I did rule Vashj'ir as a single zone, I'm tempted to call the various zones of Argus their own things - partially because these are vastly distant parts of an entirely separate world, rather than regions within what was basically just a very large zone. So, counting Argus as three, we get a total of... hey, it's 10 again!

So that puts the average zones per expansion just under 10, not counting the massive original WoW of course.

So why go through this, other than a sort of obsessive list-making urge (let's be honest, that's the main reason)? Well, in Battle for Azeroth we have six zones currently - three for each side to level through. It does look like we'll have some content in old zones, of course, like the Warfront in Arathi Highlands and likely the Barrens after that. But I do wonder if we're due for four new zones over the course of the expansion.

Given Azshara's presence in the next raid after Uldir, I suspect we could be getting Nazjatar as a zone. It would make sense for us to visit the Naga capital if we're going to take down their queen - I'll confess I felt strange assaulting Argus only after we had killed both Archimonde and Kil'jaeden, so I would want to see Nazjatar before Azshara is dead.

Then, I strongly suspect that N'zoth is going to be seen this expansion - if not the final boss of it. That could mean that we might actually see Ny'alotha, which some theories have pointed out would be more or less directly between Kul Tiras and Zandalar.

Either of these could actually serve as quasi-continents in the style of Argus, which could put us up to the typical number of zones per expansion. Of course, it remains to be seen just how this war between the factions develops. It would be hard (and very controversial) to hit any harder than how the expansion began, but it would also be perhaps a little underwhelming to see that conflict peter out. Still, sort of by definition, any home-turf clash would require using existing zones.

Who's the Boss?

No, it's not about that sitcom from the 80s (sidenote: I was born in the mid-80s which means I really think of myself as growing up in the 90s, and as a little kid I didn't realize how much of the sitcoms I was watching were actually reruns from the previous decade, meaning that I thought a fair number of 80s sitcoms were actually 90s ones.)

What we're going to be talking about here is a certain Warcraft character's mysterious boss. I'll note that I haven't actually done the quests surrounding this question - they require revered with Zandalari Empire and I think my Horde character is only just into Honored so far - but I've seen enough of (and done a fair amount of Zandalar content) to perhaps start to speculate.

Anyway, SPOILERS AHOY

For Gilneas

The initial idea behind the attack on Teldrassil was to create a political crisis within the Alliance. The Alliance has always fostered a remarkable level of unity - while Garrosh was banning Trolls and Goblin from the center of Orgrimmar (respected heroes excepted, of course) Varian was having his son study with Velen. What internal strife there has been has generally not shown up in-game - we never saw Moira try to take over Ironforge, for example.

In "A Good War," we actually get a sense of how clever the strategy was: The Night Elves are the most independent of the Alliance cultures, and one with a certain bearing of history on Azeroth (Draenei culture is over twice as old, but their refugee status has humbled them.) By capturing Teldrassil, the Alliance's hand would be forced - Tyrande would never respect an Alliance that did not come to her aid in re-taking her capital. But given how long Gilneas has been occupied at worst and a battleground at best, the theory went that the Gilneans would resent the Alliance pulling out all the stops to liberate Teldrassil when Gilneas is not free. The idea then, would be that Anduin would have to sacrifice either the support of the Night Elves or the Worgen/Gilnean humans and thus be exposed when the Horde marched on Stormwind.

It's not flawless, though. Given how generous the Night Elves were to the Gilneans after the Forsaken invasion, I could imagine Genn putting his full support behind such an effort, and indeed, there are plenty of Gilneans who would need rescuing if Teldrassil were occupied, so I think that this fracture would not be as strong as the Horde leadership assumes it would be.

Still, it's moot.

Burning Teldrassil as a tactical decision accomplished the goal of yes, removing an Alliance stronghold from Kalimdor, and its intention was to be so brazen and overwhelming a strike as to intimidate the Alliance, force them to reconsider fighting the Horde for fear of falling to a similar fate.

Except that this second reason also doesn't work, because the Horde were the aggressors here. What had the Alliance done except disrupt azerite mining in Silithus - a typically limited engagement? Indeed, what it really told the Alliance was that they have to go on the offensive. And that was also part of the plan - Undercity was rigged as a big trap for the Alliance, but it also wound up very costly for the Horde, so... not a great win? (Especially since Alliance losses were not as devastating as Sylvanas had planned for.)

But something I wonder if Sylvanas had forgotten to consider was that by removing Teldrassil from the map - both as an Alliance stronghold, yes, but also as a liability that required liberation - she opened up the Eastern Kingdoms to Alliance domination.

Frankly, at this point I don't really see why the Horde would even want Gilneas anymore. It was meant to serve as a port for Undercity, but with Undercity gone, it would seem more logical to focus efforts on Quel'thalas (an area that I think is super-ripe for conflict given that a sizable portion of its population is now with the Alliance.)

But the Alliance has both the opportunity and the motivation to take Gilneas back. Indeed, the main reason for the Horde to try to hold it at this point I think would be to deny it to the Alliance. Burning Gilneas City to the ground would probably be a more reasonable tactical move than Teldrassil.

The Alliance does not hold Lordaeron City - no one does at this point - but the Forsaken must be barely holding onto their territories in Lordaeron. For Genn, it's time to come home. Hell, even the Kul Tirans might be invested in reclaiming Gilneas, given that their ancestors came from there. Indeed, the Gilneans might pay the Night Elves back by inviting them to live with them in Gilneas (and they could combine druidic powers to cleanse the place of plague.)

On top of all that, at a meta level, beyond phased quests that end in the teens, Gilneas is empty, doing nothing. It's a gorgeous zone (Gilneas City, while rather small, is really cool,) and I think it would be great to return there.

So perhaps we'll see it in a later patch?

Azerite Versus Artifacts

Azerite armor is an interesting idea. It's one that is going to largely define BFA's gearing game. Rather than looking for secondary stats, we're going to have to know which traits serve us best, and thankfully at least, pieces have a set array of traits, so you can target the piece of gear you want.

But it's a pretty weird system.

Artifact weapons were far from perfect, but they had a few elements that I find lacking in the Azerite system.

First and foremost, there was the flavor. Each artifact weapon had a story to it, and while some had more interesting ones and some had stories we already knew, the fact that your weapon had a number of different looks that all tied in to that singular identity was pretty cool.

The Heart of Azeroth is, of course, identical between each character that is playing, and its own actual stats as a piece of gear are static other than its gradual upgrading - there's nothing particularly special to the Heart itself, except how it affects your other pieces of gear.

Artifact weapons brought back a lot of bonuses to various abilities - you had shorter cooldowns, stronger-hitting abilities, and other various interesting buffs. It was a real call back to the old days of the pre-Mists talent trees. While I generally think the Mists rows-with-three-choices model is overall superior, one thing that they've acknowledged as a problem is that you don't feel that gradual building power you used to. In Wrath and earlier, we got a talent point every level, which meant that any time you dinged (starting at level 10) you got to be a bit more powerful.

Artifact weapons had a bit of that - you'd generally be able to unlock maybe a trait (or a rank of a trait) per level while working toward 110.

Azerite gear might get more interesting over the course of the expansion, but while leveling you run into the following problem:

Azerite gear starts at 280, meaning that you're not likely to get a straight upgrade on those pieces while leveling, at least until you're close to 120. And those early pieces only require a few Heart of Azeroth levels to unlock, making them rather static once you hit level 3 or so.

But when you do get higher-level Azerite gear, you have this issue where you might have some nice traits, but you can't access them because of the gating from the Heart of Azeroth. It doesn't feel great.

There's also the limitation to abilities - though this of course could be a result of how early we are in the expansion, of course. There's basically a few traits we can hope for and we try to get pieces with those traits. It's very much like the Netherlight Crucible, which was probably the least exciting thing about artifact weapons.

I get that they didn't want to just have us use our artifact weapons forever onward, which makes perfect sense (especially for those specs that maybe wanted a change - I'm sure some Fire Mages are happy to get staves back.) But as a follow-up, I'm not really convinced by this new set-up.

N'Zoth, the Least Powerful Old God

There are about three phases to the primordial world of Azeroth. In the beginning, there was just Azeroth the Titan beginning to incubate within her planet-sized shell (we really need an answer on what happens when a Titan emerges. Hopefully the planet doesn't get destroyed...) Because she was so powerful a World Soul, she drained much of the "spirit" energy from it that would normally allow the elements to act in harmony. As a result, the surface of Azeroth in its most natural state is one of chaos, where the Elemental Lords clashed constantly with one another.

This lasted until the coming of the Old Gods. Sent as enormous, tumorous meteorites by the extremely mysterious Void Lords, the Old Gods impacted on the surface and began to burrow in - their ultimate goal being to pump void energy into the World Soul and transform her into a Void Titan.

We know of four unambiguously canonical Old Gods - Y'Shaarj, Yogg-Saron, C'thun, and N'zoth. Notably, G'huun is sometimes referred to as an Old God in-game, though outside of the game, it has been referred to as a "Blood God" that was created through Titan experiments that aimed to reverse engineer these eldritch monstrosities in the hopes of finding a way to safely excise them.

There was a clear hierarchy amongst the Old Gods. Y'Shaarj was the most powerful, with the largest territories. Yogg-Saron and C'thun were both on a comparable level with one another, while N'zoth languished in last place.

And yet.

Perhaps because of its lack of physical strength or territory, N'zoth seems to be the most cleverly manipulative of the Old Gods. And that's saying something, because their whole deal is manipulation. The Old Gods have a profound ability to influence the minds of mortals, though thankfully there seem to be some limits or else everyone on Azeroth would be serving them.

C'thun and Yogg-Saron would often team up against N'zoth, keeping him (I'm just going to use the masculine pronoun based on the voice actor) in check. But we've seen N'zoth accomplish some rather dramatic things.

When Aman'thul plucked Y'shaarj out of Azeroth, creating the Well of Eternity, the God of Seven Heads could only curse the land to the south with the Sha and rip out a big chunk of Azeroth with him - creating the Well of Eternity (so, was the Well a pool of pure Azerite?)

However, there was no opportunity for the Old Gods to jostle for position in the power vacuum, as the Titanforged armies soon thereafter triumphed and locked the Old Gods away in their prisons.

Yogg-Saron was locked away in Ulduar, which then served as the command center for the entire planet, where the leadership of the Titanforged watched over the world. Yogg-Saron eventually manipulated things so that Loken would serve him, and infected the Titanforged with what was essentially a computer virus - the Curse of Flesh. New Titanforged would devolve into flesh-and-blood creatures, and even previously created ones would gradually succumb to the infection. Yogg-Saron also had tendrils reaching as far south as Grizzly Hills, and would (much later) infect the Emerald Dream through the corrupted World Tree, Vordrassil.

C'thun was locked away in Ahn-Qiraj. And while this has been stated to be part of a Titan facility (likely a satellite structure of Uldum,) now that we have seen some shots of the Black Empire, it actually looks a lot like they basically just walled him into his own city. Ahn-Qiraj might, in fact, be our best example of what the Black Empire looked like, and the various floating monoliths in Silithus (er... that were in Silithus. There's kind of a big sword there now) could be remnants from those dark days. C'thun's actions post-imprisonment don't seem to be as subtle - he produced a massive Qiraji army that he managed to send out in an attempt to conquer Kalimdor. The Night Elves and the Bronze Dragons managed to fend this off, and we of course later went in ourselves to fight C'thun. He did seem to eventually possess Cho'gall, and despite being "dead" acted through Cho'gall during the Catalcysm.

N'zoth, despite being the least powerful in theory, has had a hand in more plots than the other Old Gods. First off, during the War of the Ancients, it's likely that he was the one that corrupted Deathwing. At its conclusion, as we saw in the really cool Azshara Warbringers short, N'zoth also created the Naga. Later, despite the fact that it was Yogg-Saron who created the Emerald Nightmare, N'zoth seems to have been the one to take it over.

The thing is, N'zoth is willing to play low status to get what he wants. And I wonder if he maybe allowed his territory to be squeezed by the forces of C'thun and Yogg-Saron. He wants to appear the weak one - the one that doesn't need to be dealt with just yet.

There's a moment in Azshara Warbringers where N'zoth seems shockingly quick to anger. He comes in totally on-brand, a calm and quiet and curious voice offering a deal. But when Azshara says no to her, he seems enraged.

Now, that could just be a flaw in the writing, but I suspect that this is part of his play.

Yes, initially he speaks through a dead fish - a tiny little creature that would never be threatening to Azshara. But when he reveals his true form to her, he realizes he has to play a different part. Azshara has been dealing with the likes of Sargeras, Archimonde, and Mannoroth. While she has a healthy respect for Sargeras (who I think is really the most powerful individual entity in the Warcraft cosmos, at least until Azeroth reaches maturity,) people like Mannoroth in particular are the kind to try to boast and intimidate, to demonstrate their power in order to cow this mere mortal. But Azshara knows she has the goods to stand up to that sort of creature, and so she feels comfortable letting powerful beings underestimate her.

By throwing his tentacle tantrum, N'zoth is playing into the model - letting Azshara feel like she's won.

Here's the thing: she is called a queen, yes, but is her position really any different than what N'zoth offered her in the first place?

Azshara clearly wants this power for herself - she'll make a strategic alliance, as long as she's the one on top. And N'zoth is fine with that. It's what he has always done.

But when we see Azshara transformed, her legions of Naga forming in front of her, who do we see at her back? Who is the real power behind the throne?

It's the massive, red eye of N'zoth.

So how is our "least powerful Old God" doing? Y'shaarj is dead. C'thun and Yogg-Saron are both defeated. N'zoth, though? We don't even know where he is.

Places of Conflict for BFA

For now, the Alliance and Horde are trying to undercut and subvert each other on Zandalar and Kul Tiras. The current war is focused primarily on these lands, though we've of course seen some devastating battles in northern Kalimdor and Lordaeron.

It's clear that this is meant to be a global war, which is reinforced in the mission descriptions at the command table (though even as someone who is careful to read quest text, even I forget to read this stuff about two thirds of the time.)

There's certainly a possibility we'll see new locations added in patch content, but what of existing areas?

One of the benefits of phasing that they don't actually use all that often is the ability to have us do stuff in old areas - Gilneas is a great example, where Alliance players (namely Worgen) get one version of the zone while a big chunk of the Horde experience in Silverpine actually sends them into Gilneas as well - in fact, it feels rather similar to how the two sides are sent on incursions into the opposite continents in BFA (particularly for Horde, as Kul Tiras feels much more like a unified nation than Zandalar.)

We know we're getting Warfronts in some of the older areas - Arathi Highlands will see the Alliance and Horde clashing over Stromgarde and a new Horde base in the northwest of the zone. There's a lot of speculation that the Southern Barrens might expand into a true Warfront as well.

One sticking point that seems ripe for development is Gilneas - for a long time, the Gilneans have been forced out of their home due to proximity to the Forsaken, but now that the Undercity is lost, it seems the perfect time for the Worgen and Humans of Gilneas to return.

There is, of course, room for a guerrilla campaign against the Horde in northern Kalimdor, where the Kaldorei might wish to exact a great price for the fate of Teldrassil.

The Horde doesn't have a lot of territory to take back, as they didn't have much territory to begin with, but one area I'd really like to see in conflict is Quel'thalas. The Alliance now has both High Elves and Void Elves (only the latter being playable, of course,) and so it would seem that an effort to claim Silvermoon for the Alliance has some legitimacy. I'd actually find it interesting if we saw the Void Elves attack Quel'danas and try to claim the Sunwell, though the Draenei and High Elves might take issue with that. But it would put the Horde in a position of being both defending and having the moral high ground for a change.

Northrend is another area I think we could return to. It's one of the few areas in the game that truly feels like a full continent rather than glorified islands (yes, I realize that even EK and Kalimdor are only the size of Manhattan if translated into the real world.) Dragonblight seems the best location for such a thing, given the wide expanse of snow between two major fortresses. And given Sylvanas' experiments in necromancy, Northrend is a pretty relevant place.

There's obviously a limit to how much they can do here, and I doubt we'd see all of these battlefronts over the course of this expansion. Still, I tend to like when they reinforce the idea that the older continents remain relevant to the story even after we've finished the expansion there, and this Alliance/Horde war seems like a good opportunity to see them.

On Zandalar, Kul Tiras, and Other Destinations for Battle for Azeroth

Having finally gotten my Shaman to 120, I'm now just beginning to scratch the surface of the endgame, including the War Campaign. I remain unconvinced that the Horde feels fully justified in its fight against the Alliance - naturally they're not getting the full perspective on things, and so the notion that, say, Sylvanas killed the Desolate Council and the other Forsaken who went to the peace summit has probably been covered up to blame the Alliance and reinforce the sense among the Forsaken that only the Dark Lady will ever accept them for who they are (this is, by the way, classic abusive behavior.)

Anyway, I realized that the two continents feel very different.

See, the Zandalari Empire more or less only has real control over Zuldazar. Going to Nazmir or Vol'dun means going to a dangerous frontier. Now, Nazmir was apparently not too different from Zuldazar before the Cataclysm, but at this point both those zones feel like dangerous wilderness and haunted ruins. Zandalar also has more local races - the Vulpera and Sethrik populate Vol'dun, and indeed Vol'dun seems more like it has always been Sethrik territory, even though there are troll ruins throughout.

By contrast, all of Kul Tiras feels very much like a unified nation. One gets the sense that, prior to all the problems that have arisen in the years since Daelin died, it would probably not be too strange for someone to travel from Corlain to Boralus to Brennandam without fear. The only place that truly feels dangerous and out of the way is Freehold, a city run by pirates, but it's clear that most of those pirates are also Kul Tirans who just figured they could do better as criminals than legitimate sailors and marines.

On my Alliance characters, going to Zandalar doesn't actually feel that different from going to other regions. It's only when I find myself sneaking through the streets of Dazar'alor that it feels truly like I'm in someone else's territory. But on Horde characters, going to Kul Tiras feels very much like being behind enemy lines at all times, even if I'm riding down the Old Drust Road near Bridgeport.

The Alliance sees a lot more of the Horde in Kul Tiras than the Horde sees the Alliance in Zandalar. The invasion of Brennandam is surprising and brutal (there are people seemingly strung up on the walls of their homes) and a good chunk of the quests in Stormsong Valley involves taking the fight to the invading Horde forces (collectively it's one of the story chapters required for the quest achievement in the zone.) Yet it would not be too difficult for Horde players to not even realize the Alliance was there except for a few shipwreck survivors after the cinematic that plays when you arrive on the continent.

Zandalar's story is very much focused on the Uldir raid and building up to it. All three zones play into the raid's story, and until we can actually go in there, the Zandalar plot is in this dark place that remains unresolved.

Kul Tiras, by contrast, seems to be all tied up quite well by the time players finish the Siege of Boralus dungeon.

I imagine that the end of Uldir will give the Zandalari a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, and arguably closes out that story as well.

So what is left is the Alliance/Horde conflict.

We don't have anything like Suramar right now - while there is endgame quest content, it seems that the War Campaign (at least that for 8.0) is rather short - I only have one chapter left for it on my main character. So are they simply not doing such a long and involved story at the level cap this time around, or are they building up to it, to come out later?

Furthermore, we know that the next raid - or at least a nearby, upcoming raid that is supposed to be the first major raid of the expansion - will have us fight Azshara. Her connection to the Old Gods has been made very explicit with her Warbringers short. So where might we fight her?

I'll point out that it would be rather strange to not have a single raid on Kul Tiras, and given Azshara's somewhat more explicit influence on Kul Tiras than Zandalar, it could be that her raid takes place there to follow up Uldir.

Still, given that we've heard so often about Nazjatar, it seems to me that it would be rather odd for us not to see that place before we fight her.

Personally, I'm holding out hope for a Drust raid as a distinctly Kul Tiran instance. I think it's very likely we'll get new zones opening up over the course of BFA.

Nazjatar is the most likely, if you ask me, and unlike Kul Tiras or Zandalar, this will be hostile territory to both factions.

Then, given the fact that we've now "met" N'zoth through Azshara's short, I really have to wonder if Ny'alotha is going to be where this expansion ends. The K'thir in Stormsong Valley make references to the mysterious "circle" and also speak of Ny'alotha, which seems a strong hint that we're on our way there.

Of course, Ny'alotha's location is totally unknown - we generally think it's probably beneath the ocean, but beyond that, it's unclear. Consider, for example, that Y'shaarj was exactly where the Maelstrom was - it was Aman'thul tearing Y'shaarj out of the planet that created the Well of Eternity, which is now the Maelstrom. If Nazjatar is built out of the ruins of Zin-Azshari, as seems to be suggested, that would mean that Ny'alotha ought not to be too close to it - unless N'zoth moved into his former rival's territory.

Is Ny'alotha a city of the Black Empire? Is it N'zoth's prison? And finally, is it even on this plane?

Yogg-Saron was able to infect the Emerald Dream with the Nightmare, which N'zoth somehow took over from Yogg-Saron. Given that he was able to plant his corruption into the dream, is it possible that he has also done so within the Shadowlands?

I've been arguing that we're probably doing a Shadowlands expansion of some sort next, and it would be really interesting to see if N'zoth is connected to it in some kind of clever ploy.

These locations seem like logical additions to the game. I don't really know how the faction conflict will tie into that, but we shall see.

Warbringers: Azshara

Azshara does not consider herself to be beneath anyone. Her actions in the War of the Ancients were born out of a sense that there was no mortal worthy of being her consort - she would settle for no less than Sargeras himself, and one can imagine that if her union with the Legion had been successful, she would have attempted to usurp his position as well (though Sargeras only had eyes of Azeroth.)

But in the end of the War of the Ancients, Azshara was in trouble. The massive, apocalyptic waves caused by the destruction of the Well of Eternity were closing in on her capital, and we see her attempt to stop them through sheer magical force.

Is she trying to rescue her people? Or her empire? I'd argue the latter - Azshara is maybe the most self-centered person in the Warcraft cosmos. But it frankly looks quite heroic at first, when you ignore her role in the events leading up to this catastrophe (though I also think it's worth noting that Malfurion either didn't know or didn't care that this would happen to a bunch of innocent civilians.)

The oddest of things, though, appears to her - a dying fish, flapping on the dry ground that is not in the breathable water because of Azshara's actions. She sees the fish drowning in air as she realizes she's about to drown in the water.

And then a voice speaks to her. This is the first of three voices she hears, but they are all presumably from the same entity. The first voice is soft, feminine, and almost seems familiar to her, like a mother or sister. It whispers to her that it's time for her empire to end, that she must let go.

And ultimately, she does, perhaps no longer having the strength to hold on.

She drifts through the waters, her drowned people dying around her. She envisions them rotting and swarming her as some kind of undead (not unlike the visions Jaina has in her Warbringers short,) and a voice begins to speak to her.

This is the second voice - it's male, but calm and charming. It offers a deal, saying that it can rescue her and her people in exchange for service. But it's a formless darkness, and then manifests as that drowning fish - not drowned any longer. Is it a dead fish? What is this being beneath the waves? It's unclear how much Azshara knows of this entity, except she sort of understands it to be something that was trapped in the deep places, old and forgotten.

When she belittles it, it reveals itself: A third voice speaks, this one booming and powerful, and we see a glimpse:

It appears to be N'zoth, in its full glory, a massive empire stretching out with obelisks pointing up as his massive tentacles reach out through them. And Azshara looks upon this empire just as she has seen her own crumble and can only say "Magnificent."

But when he offers to change her, make her part of his future, she declines. She will not be a slave - she is a queen.

The vision ends, and then my favorite moment in the short happens: Azshara looks smug, ready for N'zoth to fold. Then bubbles escape her mouth. She's still drowning. Panic begins to gradually creep into her expression, and just as she seems about to scream in terror - her ego and boldness finally exacting its price, and hey, maybe she could have learned something from this if she weren't about to die - the transformation begins.

Her form is twisted, mutated, and she becomes the Naga queen before N'zoth's enormous eye. Imbued with his power, the other drowning Night Elves are transformed as well, and the Naga are born. Azshara has secured her position - she will be Queen of a reborn Black Empire.

She certainly feels like she's gotten a win here. What I wonder is: was this N'zoth's plan all along?

Also, is there any way we're not fighting N'zoth by the end of the expansion?

Zandalar Forever

Oddly, what appears to be the equivalent to Kul Tiras' Pride of Kul Tiras chain doesn't actually require any dungeon runs, or even require you to be at the level cap (somehow my Shaman has finished all three zones and isn't even 119 yet - my Alliance DK just passed him to be my second 120 character.) It does unlock the King's Rest dungeon (something I just accomplished on my Alliance main, which requires getting to the second-to-last chapter in the War Campaign,) and maybe I've forgotten that there's more to that chain, but given the big cinematic moments within it, it seems to be complete.

SPOILERS AHOY

What Will the Alliance/Horde Conflict Look Like During BFA?

We're just a week and a day into BFA (ok, more like two days,) and so what we're currently experiencing is the first chapter of the expansion. Given the story found in leveling content, that's a pretty big chunk of the game's story (though thankfully, in recent expansions that don't include Warlords, there's still a lot of story to come afterwards.)

Given that it's at the center of this expansion, what can we say about the war between the factions?

The expansion began explosively. The Horde launched a strike against the Alliance, ultimately destroying Teldrassil and killing a huge portion of the Night Elf population - most of whom were civilians. The Alliance responded by attacking Lordaeron, besieging the Undercity, which Sylvanas more or less scuttled with Blight in an attempt to trap the Alliance leadership and deny them a base of operations. Two major cities are gone, and both sides have lost a great deal of territory while making contested gains on their "home continents"

The first chapter of BFA is generally less concerned with that conflict than it is with the acquisition of new allies. The Horde has sought out the Zandalari after they discovered their crown princess was locked up in the Stockades of Stormwind. Facing the Zandalari's powerful navy, the Alliance decided it was time to bring Kul Tiras back into the fold to counter this new threat.

Thus the main plot of both leveling experiences is largely about resolving some of the issues that these two nations are dealing with and showing your faction's usefulness as allies. The Alliance story in that regard is, apparently a rather complete success. Coups are thwarted, cultists purged, and the Kul Tiran fleet returned (along with Jaina's brother Tandred.) The Zandalari are still in a bit of disarray, with their Loa of Kings slain and the threat of an Old God (or Old-God-like-entity) at the heart of their island.

The Horde barely sees the Alliance at all in Zandalar (at least from what quests I've done, though I've gotten the achievements for each zone.) The Alliance, on the other hand, repels an invasion of Brennandam, the largest town outside of Boralus in the country, by a sudden and intense incursion of the Horde. Indeed, the Horde has a rather large base of operations in Stormsong Valley, and while Alliance players torch the place, Horde players later arrive to salvage and rebuild the base.

I have not completed the war campaign quests (I've got two more chapters on my Alliance main and my Horde Shaman is nearing 118 and nearly done with his third zone, so I suppose he'll be doing a ton of side-quests when that's done,) so there might be some big reveals here, but I suspect that we're still in a place-setting phase. We're getting to know these new continents before we blast them apart with war.

Each side has one or more bases on the other continent, and one decision I think was quite wise on Blizzard's part was to make parts of each city open adventuring space for both factions - Alliance players can fight and quest through parts of Dazar'alor while Horde players stalk the streets of Boralus. It seems logical that it will be from these places that they strike against one another.

One thing I wonder is how these places will look by the end of the fight. It seems logical to me that the Horde will seize more territory in Kul Tiras over time while the Alliance makes gains in Zandalar. Each of these new countries will have to pay a price for siding with their faction.

The alternative, however, is that we might see these more as jumping off points. To my mind, this is the closest we're ever getting to a "South Seas" expansion, what with its nautical theme and the island expeditions. There are, of course, other places that have been mentioned that we could visit. We do actually wind up returning to Kezan for the MOTHERLODE!! dungeon (their spelling) but we have yet to see Tel'abim or Zul'dare or, of course, Nazjatar, which seems the logical place for us to go fight Queen Azshara.

One thing Legion did quite well was have its major raids push the story forward. Nighthold ended with us fighting Gul'dan, but it also brought Illidan back, pushing us toward the Tomb of Sargeras. Tomb, of course, opened the way to Argus, which defined the last chapter of the expansion with the addition of three zones.

I don't know if G'huun's demise will herald anything other than the relief that the thing is dead (though if it's a true Old God, how dead will it really be...?) but I could certainly imagine that if we kill Azshara, it's going to cause some really catastrophic consequence she will have set up in advance.

On one hand, she could have rigged a dead-man's switch of sorts, but it might be more in character for her to have some kind of system designed to keep running as long as she's alive, with her assumption being that she will always be alive.

Anyway, we're very much in the dark about what comes after Azshara. I hesitate to speculate about the number of raid "tiers" (especially since tiers don't really apply now that there aren't any tier sets) after I got burned in Warlords (I was so convinced we'd have an Infinite dragonflight-themed mid-tier.) Still, I really have to wonder what to expect from the rest of the expansion, and what order it will come in.

I've said before that I think it likely we'll get some kind of PvE representation of the faction conflict at the raid level. The question is how that will work: will we have bosses with different looks but identical mechanics? Also, who will we be fighting?

There's also the question of Sylvanas. With players and Saurfang alike feeling seriously disillusioned with the Horde thanks to her actions, one wonders how she can remain Warchief through subsequent expansions. We have yet (I think - again, haven't done max-level Horde content) to understand why Vol'jin named her as his successor.

It would seem very obvious and repetitive to simply have her go the way of Garrosh, with a rebellion of honorable Horde members striking down another Warchief. But how do they deal with what she has done?

Furthermore, I really want to see more internal conflict among the Alliance. Burning Teldrassil achieved the opposite of the goal capturing it was meant to accomplish - it was meant to divide the Alliance between Night Elves wishing for its liberation and Worgen eager to start by taking back Gilneas. The infighting, Saurfang had hoped, would leave the Alliance less unified in defending their core territories. But instead, the surviving Night Elves are now bolstering Stormwind's defenses and the Alliance is about as unified in cause against the Horde as they've ever been - Anduin, always a champion for peace, marched on Undercity and left the Forsaken homeland in ruins.

Now, part of me loves the idea of Sylvanas' clever plan blowing up in her face (I would have absolutely loved it if Sylvanas had begun her villain speech in the Lordaeron throne room only for Anduin to cut her off and say "kill her," and for Sylvanas to have to flee with several arrows in her back. It would have been a great moment to see her underestimating him. But oh well, I'm not the writer here.) Still, I think the Alliance needs internal conflict to help them stop simply reacting to the Horde, and I also think there needs to be some brutality and cruelty on their side to help motivate the Horde, whose main motivation to fight the Alliance so far has felt mostly "we just don't really like them for some reason, despite all their offers of peace."

So if we were to have a big AvH raid, where would it be? And would it even be in the same place?

We have a dungeon in Boralus, so it might be cool to have a fight through Zuldazar - maybe making our way from the harbor up to the top of the pyramid. Another option would be a fight through one of the remaining capital cities. We've done Orgrimmar, though, and I feel like the Alliance needs a turn to be on the attack (yes, I know they just attacked Undercity, but I think narratively the Horde needs an opportunity to be against the ropes in a way that isn't "this is actually going according to my plan anyway.") That actually only leaves Thunder Bluff and Silvermoon as Horde capitals that would make sense. Frankly, with the Void Elves joining the Alliance, a battle over Silvermoon would make a lot of sense, with Alleria and Vereesa leading their contingents against Lor'themar. At this point, I'd imagine the Blood Elves are still a majority of Quel'thalas' inhabitants, but it's very interesting to now have a full-fledged playable Alliance race that has a legitimate claim to the city.

I think the last question I want to deal with is the order of things.

Generally, my take on the plot of BFA is that it starts with us fighting one another more bitterly than ever before, but we eventually realize that there is a much larger threat that requires, if not unity, then a sort of armistice to deal with it.

But I could be wrong. Ironically, Old Gods have never been the final bosses of expansions - yes, C'thun is now sort of the ultimate vanilla raid boss, but at the time it was the original Naxxramas that was the last to come out before Burning Crusade. Yogg-Saron was also the middle tier (there was also Trial of the Crusader, which in retrospect probably should have counted as a sort of half-tier like Trial of Valor or the original Zul'Aman raid) before going to Icecrown Citadel (hm, Old God raids have always been followed by Scourge raids... interesting.) So it's possible that after Azshara, we'll go fight N'zoth, but that the final raid of BFA will actually have us turn back to the faction conflict.

The real question, though, is if there's a major Alliance/Horde raid, what are the implications? The last time we had something even like that, the Horde's Warchief was unseated and replaced. Any Alliance/Horde raid is going to involve major characters at least being beaten and possibly dying. Who could it be?

Personally, I don't want it to be Jaina. Her overreaction in Dalaran during the whole Divine Bell fiasco was bad... for an Alliance character. But her supposed villainy was nowhere near as horrific as things many Horde characters have already done - and she was taking prisoners, not just killing indiscriminately. What she is now, however, is someone who can instill fear in the Horde, and that's something the Alliance needs - and something the Horde needs.

Frankly, if there were one Alliance leader I could imagine dying soon it would be Velen. The only problem with this is that we already saw a different Velen die in Warlords of Draenor (and if you were only half-paying attention and played both Warlords and Legion, you must have been really confused.) Still, as a 25,000+ year old guy who has truly finished his life's mission, he's definitely more expendable these days.

On the Horde side, Saurfang frankly is looking forward to an honorable warrior's death - but he doesn't actually deserve it. The thing is, he talks a lot about honor, and tries to instill it in his followers, but the reason he's so conscious about it is that he keeps failing to live up to his own ideals. Throwing his axe at Malfurion was one that gave him pause and stayed his hand when he could have killed the Archdruid, but the truth is that his whole preemptive strike against the Night Elves was dishonorable. Sure, Sylvanas talked him into it, but the whole thing (minus burning the tree, of course) was his plan. This is a guy who drank demon blood when the Horde found itself unable to break through the defenses of Shattrath and Karabor.

Dying to a swarm of Alliance soldiers would be an ideal way for him to die - but I think that's why he shouldn't get that. It also doesn't seem likely he's going to be fighting the Alliance anymore through this current war - not while Sylvanas is Warchief.

There is an upcoming Q&A for BFA, which might shed a little more light on what we'll be getting as the expansion goes on. But at the moment, I think it's very up in the air. I'm fairly certain that the whole Death/Necromancy/Shadowlands-themed stuff feels more like a future expansion, given that it's coming at us from so many different angles - it would be hard to incorporate the Drust, Bwonsamdi, and Sylvanas all into the same single raid - but I could be wrong. Maybe the final boss is Bolvar. Maybe it's Azeroth the Titan. Maybe it's Lady Ashvane. Who knows?

Shadow and Death

I have yet to get a Horde character to 120 (my Shaman has done Nazmir and Vol'dun, but is at 116 - I'll probably start Zuldazar on him today.) Still, I've now done all six leveling zones (the Rogue did Zuldazar first - urban intrigue seems right for him,) and I know a little about what happens with the Zandalar plot later on.

SPOILERS AHOY

The Tidemother

In Stormsong Valley, we're presented with the following story: (SPOILERS TO FOLLOW)

The Tidesages are an order of priests in Kul Tiras who worship a goddess known as the tidemother. They listen to voices within the ocean and use their powers to bless ships within the Kul Tiran navy and provide the appropriate amount of rain to allow Stormsong Valley to produce enough food for the nation.

When we arrive, there's a crisis - the Tidesages are holed up in their temple, the Shrine of the Storms, and are refusing to locate the missing Kul Tiran fleet. Indeed, they're even blocking trade with the rest of Kul Tiras.

We eventually discover that Lord Stormsong has been driven mad by eldritch whispers - the voice from the depths that Tidesages listen to has turned dark and convinced Lord Stormsong that they must transform themselves into monstrous K'thir (who look 100% like Mind Flayers, aka Ilithid, from Dungeons and Dragons) and go to live beneath the water. The K'thir are pretty clearly linked to the Old Gods, and are accompanied by Faceless Ones, and as we later find out, Azshara.

A rebel faction of Tidesages resist this Old God corruption, trying to keep the Tidesage tradition pure and fight against Stormsong's corruption. Sadly, it seems as if Stormsong is a victim in this, as he was once a rather benevolent figure.

But here's my question: Is this faith corrupted? Or is it actually just taking its true form?

Obviously, anytime in Warcraft when you hear about people listening to whispers from deep places, you've got to be really skeptical (I'm not predicting some grand reveal, but I also feel like we should be taking everything Magni says with a grain of salt, just in case.) On one hand, the Tidepriests actually seem a lot like Shamans (though given their penchant for cloth armor, I don't think that's an indication of Kul Tiran Humans getting that as a class option,) and listening to the water in a "spiritual communion with the element of water" would be considered kosher in Warcraft lore. But let's look at a couple things:

If they were listening to the main god-like ruler of water, it'd probably be Neptulon, who is male.

As we march on the Shrine of the Storm toward the end of that quest chain, we encounter three objects: The Tidemother's Wrath, the Tidemother's Pride, and a third one I can't quite remember the name of (and I'm having trouble reaching WoWhead right now.) Now, remember the final boss of Eye of Azshara in Legion? Azshara's Wrath. In quests in the western part of the zone, we fight off the Naga and ultimately confront a similar construct called Azshara's Pride.

All this seems to be pointing in one direction: I think the Tidemother is Azshara.

Now, you may wonder why there would be so sudden a turn. Were the Tidesages not originally good and helpful to Kul Tiras?

The thing is, I think Azshara is someone who has very longterm plans. She has been around for over ten thousand years, and Kul Tiran culture, while ancient by human standards, got started well after Azshara had established herself beneath the waves.

Wouldn't it be just like Azshara to gradually, over many generations, shape Kul Tiran culture to suit her needs? Humans on Azeroth have proven themselves a resilient and adaptable race. Wouldn't Azshara want to have some measure of control over the most nautically-oriented human kingdom?

I suspect that the K'thir and corruption of the Tidesages was the plan all along. The question, then, is what she plans on doing with Kul Tiras.

The Pride of Kul Tiras

At the level cap, Alliance players get a quest chain that largely involves going through several of Kul Tiras' dungeons, capping with Siege of Boralus, the mythic-only dungeon on the continent.

There was a bug in this chain that gave instant credit for beating the dungeon, meaning you got to see the epilogue before the climax. The story actually ties together just about the whole story of all three Kul Tiras zones and seemingly leaves the whole continent's stories - other than the war with the Horde - more or less resolved.

Given that we're only a few days into the expansion, this is all under big spoiler warnings, so here's a cut!

SPOILER AHOY

120, Heroic Dungeons, and Giving My Shaman the First Stormstrike at Zandalar

After the usual leveling binge, I got my good Paladin to 120 by the end of Tuesday. I did a bunch of top-level content, including the conclusion of what I imagine is Jaina's 8.0 storyline (though a quest bug had me skip the Siege of Boralus dungeon. I've only run a couple heroics at this point, so I'm not quite ready for SoB (ha!)

Aside from some pants and his ret weapon, my main is now in full rare gear (though some are not quite up to Normal dungeon level.) So far I think I've gotten an item from every dungeon I've run, making me wonder if there's a sort of guarantee (does that make it more likely for you to get one of the last boss? Not sure how those statistics work out.) At the moment I think that's his best gearing option, but of course I'm trying to slow down after the initial sprint to the cap.

My Rogue has been the first Horde to the cap in every expansion since Cataclysm, but while his undead-sneakiness ties into the war storyline quite well, especially given Nathanos' increased role (though I think he'd be pissed that Sylvanas lost Undercity and isn't all that enthused about killing Alliance,) my Shaman seems like he'd fit in better among the Zandalari, and I actually really like how Enhancement feels these days (ask me again when I'm only in questing greens though.)

So I've done a few big quest chains in Nazmir, and the Shaman is sitting at 111. I'm definitely planning on taking it slower for him. To help stave off questing burnout, I'm probably going to alternate Alliance-Horde-Alliance-Horde, at least for the first five characters. So after the shaman, it'll go Death Knight, Rogue, and then Demon Hunter.

One thing I've noticed is how there's sort of parallels going on between the three zones on each continent. Drustvar and Nazmir are about how an ancient foe is cultivating a creepy cult that threatens stability of the continent. Tiragarde Sound and Zuldazar are about conspiracies within ruling class to try to usurp power from the local monarch. Stormsong Valley and Vol'dun are about seeking out missing military assets (that's more of a stretch for Vol'dun, to be fair) and discovering a connection to the Old Gods.

So far I'd say I think Zandalar is hands-down the cooler-looking continent, but on the other hand, Kul Tiras has some really cool things going for it (just about everything Drust-related is pretty awesome.)

Questing feels a lot more free-form than it has for a while - the model seems to be to have a main story, but then tons of shiny exclamation points to lure you away from it. This does make for a lot of truly optional quests, but it does lead to some odd pacing issues. For example, Stormsong Valley has its most exciting quest chain, which leads into the zone's dungeon, all happen as more or less a prerequisite for the rest of the zone, which tends to be lower-stakes stories (until you get to the west coast and Fort Daelin.)

One note: at the level cap, Alliance players get a quest sending you to a manor south of the Shrine of the Storm, and a series of quests that are all one big deep-cut reference to Darkest Dungeon, a game I've written about on this blog. I don't know what people who haven't played that game will think of it, but as a fan, it's pretty delightful to see how many very specific references that whole area is making.

Velen, the Naaru, the Light, and the Draenei Post-Argus

No race has struggled more with the demonic Burning Legion than the Draenei. Fifteen thousand years before the Night Elves had even heard of the Legion, the Draenei were forced to flee their own home planet - indeed, their race's name is a product of this fact.

Draenei is not actually the name of their species. The Draenei, along with their Lightforged kin and the shadow-cursed Broken, and even the Lost Ones (whom we haven't really seen since BC) are all Eredar. In fact, the Draenei - those who haven't been transformed by Light or Shadow magic - are what the Eredar race was before the coming of Sargeras.

The history of the corruption of the Eredar and the Legion's annexation of Argus might start with an Eredar mage named Thal'kiel. A master of summoning magic, he was one of the masters of the Conservatory of the Arcane. Thal'kiel had his own dedicated followers who studied under his instruction, called the Wakeners. Among the Wakeners was Thal'kiel's top student, Archimonde.

Delving into the mysteries of the cosmos, Thal'kiel began to hear a voice answer his inquiries - the Dark Titan Sargeras. Teaching him to summon demons rather than arcane constructs, Thal'kiel grew more and more obsessed with demonology. He eventually went to the duumvirate - the dual leaders of Argus, Kil'jaeden and Velen. Summoning legions of demons to destroy his older arcane constructs, he expected congratulations. But Kil'jaeden made no comment while Velen forbade him from continuing this line of research.

The rejection led Thal'kiel to sequester himself while he practiced summoning more and more demons. Eventually, he brought his Wakeners into a conspiracy to overthrow the Duumvirate and become the rulers of Argus.

However, Archimonde, ambitious and eager to prove himself a hero of Argus, revealed the plan to the authorities and led the attack to nip Thal'kiel's rebellion in the bud. Personally decapitating Thal'kiel, Archimonde parlayed his heroic status to political power, eventually joining Kil'jaeden and Velen as the third member of a Triumvirate.

Keeping Thal'kiel's skull as a grisly trophy of his moment of ascension, Archimonde had the skull gilded and encrusted with gems and kept it on display outside his quarters at the Conservatory. Little did he know that Thal'kiel's consciousness remained within the relic, and the skull functioned as a conduit for Sargeras to poison his mind.

Thus, when the Dark Titan arrived at Argus, Archimonde was the first to agree to his proposal.

Sargeras surely would have tried different tactics to corrupt the Eredar, but without Thal'kiel, history may have gone very differently.

Velen and his Draenei have been defined by their relationship with the Burning Legion for eons. The War of the Ancients is recent history compared to the flight from Argus.

In that conflict, the Draenei have held onto the Holy Light and the guidance of the Naaru as the sole path to survival. Traveling with a number of Naaru, the Draenei have never had a reason to question their faith - their god-like protectors are near to them, and through their grace they have been able to survive all this time.

But in what must feel like the blink of an eye to a people who live so long (remember that many living Draenei personally remember the flight from Argus) their world has been more or less turned upside down.

Consider that a mere thirty-five years ago or so, the Orcs banded together to form the Horde and immediately set about killing Draenei wherever they could find them. The slaughter was a shock, and one that left most of the Draenei dead. But some of those who were not killed were given what might be an even worse fate: the Horde altered the void-tainted blood of Seethe to use as a sort of biological weapon that mutated those it affected but also cut them off from the Light. Much as the Arrakoa who were touched by this blood were twisted in form, so too were these Draenei broken - Krokul in their language. (Little did they know, but those Draenei who stayed behind to fight the Legion on Argus seemed to fall to a similar fate thanks to the void power of the Dark Naaru L'ura.)

The notion that they could be cut off from the Light sent shockwaves through the surviving Draenei society. The Light had been the Draenei bulwark against the Legion - so how were they to trust these former friends and family who were now hideously mutated by the very opposite of the Light? In paranoia cultivated by the shocking turn of the Orcs, many Draenei turned their backs on the Krokul.

Thankfully, Velen is a thoughtful and nuanced person, and not a zealot. Speaking with Nobundo - once a heroic paladin, who had lost his power due to his transformation - he invited the former paladin and future shaman back into society, and forced his people to take in their brethren.

Nobundo introduced a very new type of spirituality to his people: while he waited in vain to hear the Light speak to him once more, it was the elemental spirits of Draenor that approached him. Eager to commune with mortals after the Orcs had abandoned them, Nobundo was able to bring this new tradition into Draenei society, and even some non-Krokul began to take it up, considering it a sort of alternate path to the Light.

Upon discovering the Alliance, which counted many worshippers of the Holy Light among its members, the Draenei resolved to travel to Azeroth and join them. Despite some early complications (it didn't help that they looked a lot like their demonic brethren) their initiation into the Alliance has gone rather smoothly, and Velen himself has developed a close relationship with the current High King, Anduin Wrynn.

But again, after what had to feel like a shockingly short amount of time, the Draenei found themselves fighting the Legion once again. But there was something different: with the allies they had found, they were finally able to stand their ground. The Legion was turned back.

Of course, their frustrated attack led to the careful manipulations that would allow for a full-scale invasion a few years later, which is where we get to the Legion expansion.

However, due to the maverick impulses of Illidan Stormrage, the ultimate battle that Velen and the Draenei had been anticipating for all their thousands of years was forced - a portal opened up between Azeroth and Argus, and it would mean the ultimate victory of one side or the other.

Illidan was certainly an ally in this fight, though his methods were profoundly different from what the Draenei had deemed acceptable. When the fragments of Xe'ra were assembled, it seemed that the Light would secure their final victory.

But Xe'ra revealed herself to be something less than pure benevolence. The Prime Naaru attempted to forcibly Lightforge Illidan - we know of something similar happening in the past, namely Lothraxion, who had been a wicked Dreadlord in service to the Legion prior to his conversion. And while Lothraxion is now a champion of the Light and a good friend and ally to mortals, Illidan was not exactly an evil demon. He had done bad things, to be sure, but his goals had always been admirable. And as Xe'ra pumped him full of the Holy Light, Illidan - someone for whom free will might be the most important value - struck back, destroying Xe'ra.

What's kind of fascinating is that Velen did not seem to blame him. Turalyon, the sole Lightforged human, was horrified, seeing this as grasping defeat from the jaws of victory, as it were. But Velen had the perspective to look at this event and see the truth - Xe'ra had been wrong to ignore Illidan's wishes.

The Light has the potential to be used as a force for good, and it often is. But as we've seen with the Scarlet Crusade or Kael'thas' Blood Knights, it can also be used for evil. And Xe'ra's actions toward Illidan showed that even the Naaru are not immune to the Light's zealous, authoritarian tendencies.

Meanwhile, we're also finding that the Void is not necessarily a force of pure chaos and evil. We saw how the Arrakoa Outcasts used shadow magic to protect themselves from the genocidally zealous Adherents (who were themselves wielders of the Light.) And now we've got the Void Elves, who, aside from a little creepy glowy tentacle here and there, seem to be good people for the most part (well, we need to see more of them to get a better sense of their culture and attitudes.)

But larger even than this realization, the fact of the matter is that the narrative has moved onto a new chapter. For eons, the Draenei knew their destiny was to return to Argus. When they arrived, though, they found a shattered husk. The Titan Argus, whom the Eredar probably didn't even know about until Sargeras took over (the Draenei certainly seem to be surprised to learn about it) is dead, which means that in a rather literal sense, their home world is dead (though given how the other Titans were able to come back, I'm not sure if we should count Argus out forever.) The point is, the Draenei end-game, which would have been "we defeat the Legion and move back home," is not going to happen. That means that the Draenei now have to commit to another world as their new home, and it looks like it'll be Azeroth.

So what, then, of the Naaru? What then of their grand purpose as a people?

The Lightforged, who have spent the last twenty-five thousand years (or the last million, if they've experienced the same time dilation as Turalyon and Alleria for the full duration) at war with the Legion, are just transitioning to new threats - currently the Horde.

We haven't tended to see the Draenei all that aggressive in previous Alliance/Horde conflicts, but that might be due to the fact that many expected that their place in the Alliance was a temporary one, and that they would eventually return to Argus, leaving the Alliance behind.

That option is off the table, and that means that they now really do need to carve out a place for themselves on Azeroth. The Alliance is the best option to secure that place, and the Horde now stands as the biggest threat to their safety.

The Draenei have managed to be deeply spiritual without zealotry in the past, but the Lightforged seem unlikely to show the same sort of restraint that Velen has. Remember that Velen saved the Blood Elves by reigniting the Sunwell - that's not bad for someone who is hypothetically your enemy. Would the Lightforged have forgiven the Blood Elves for what they had done to M'uru?

Now if you're looking for internal conflict within the Alliance, let's recall that many of the Void Elves very easily might have been the same Blood Elves who had tortured M'uru into a Void State. Now the Draenei and their Lightforged kin are going to be fighting side-by-side with these Ren'dorei.

All this, even when the idea of the Naaru and the Light being pure good are coming into question, and you've got a race that has a huge challenge set before them: who are they? What do they believe in? What is their purpose? What cause can unite them? There's no home to go back to. The dichotomy of light and shadow is in doubt.

What does it mean to be Draenei?

The Jailor of the Damned and the Banshee Queen

Bolvar Fordragon was a hero of the Alliance. In Varian's absence, Bolvar actually served as the Human racial leader during Vanilla and Burning Crusade, as Anduin was only a child at the time. In many ways, Bolvar is actually the Alliance equivalent to Saurfang - a stone-cold badass whose reputation within the Alliance was unassailable. His only great failing was in not recognizing Lady Katrana Prestor for who she really was - the Black Dragon Onyxia. Yet when the truth was revealed, Bolvar ensured both that the young King (later prince again, later king again) was safe and that Stormwind survived the infiltration by the Black Dragonflight.

That equivalence between Fordragon and Saurfang was reinforced by Bolvar's presence at the Wrath Gate, along with Saurfang's son (a son who appeared every bit as brave and honorable as Varok, but who had not sinned as his father did in the days of the Old Horde.) It was that moment - the moment of clearest, closest cooperation between the factions - that Varimathras' coup pitted the factions against each other and made Sylvanas' blight production known to the world.

However, perhaps even more than putting the factions into a conflict that would convince Thrall to give Garrosh the title of Warchief, the most significant consequence of this event may be the death - or rather, the horrific non-death - of Bolvar Fordragon.

In Chronicle III, we find out that much of Arthas' actions as Lich King were born out of a twisted version of his impulses as a Paladin. He wished to conquer the world as a way to unify it - to silence all dissent so that a global Scourge would be able to defeat the Burning Legion.

Arthas' plan to effectively audition the greatest heroes of Azeroth as his greatest lieutenants backfired due to his underestimation of the Light. But let's never forget that had Tirion Fordring not been there, the Lich King would have won, and with us at his command, he would very likely have been able to sweep away all opposition with relative ease.

Arthas used fear as a tactic to great effect - in fact, some of the most fascinating in-game books in WoW are essays written by Kel'thuzad about the Scourge's use of appropriated culture and sinister symbolism as a way to demoralize foes. The Scourge's actual stance on morality was that there is no such thing, but they were happy to play the part of an unstoppable evil juggernaut in order to incite panic in their foes. There's definitely some "be careful who you pretend to be" elements to this, but I think the Scourge just didn't care about coming off as villainous.

Arthas played his cards close to the vest, and had it not been for the miracle of the Ashbringer, he'd have won. But Bolvar has a big advantage over Arthas:

We don't know what he ultimately wants.

It was pretty clear that Arthas wanted the whole world converted into Scourge. He'd happily slay the Forsaken and raise them again to bring them back into the fold. He'd happily kill, well, everyone. To Arthas, enemies are just minions you haven't killed yet. Or rather, the living are just minions you haven't killed yet.

But Bolvar? Theoretically, his coronation as Lich King was meant as a way to keep the Scourge from going wild and attacking in all directions. The thought was that without a single mind directing them, the Scourge would be more of a virulent infection than a force that could withdraw and respect peace.

Do we know that's what he's doing? Death Knights (and to a much smaller extent Mages) get some exposure to the Lich King in Legion, and he definitely does not seem like the nice Bolvar Fordragon we once knew. He commands (well, requests from (well, commands)) Death Knights to raise various people to become the new Four Horsemen, and seems to gradually be planting various people in the Ebon Blade that are tied directly to his will rather than having their own.

During the Legion invasion, the goals of the Ebon Blade largely line up with that of the Scourge - namely the defeat of the demons - but we're putting a lot of trust in a guy who could very easily flip his organization's mission statement to "zombie apocalypse." He has us attack Light's Hope Chapel in the interest of raising Tirion Fordring as a death knight (something we thankfully fail to do) and then also has us kill a number of red dragons in order to raise one of their ancient ancestors.

Assuming Bolvar is still a good guy is very naive at this point. Arguably, he has already crossed into villain territory, but at least for the moment he does not seem to be the kind of global threat that Arthas was, and may in fact be a potential ally against worse threats.

Now let's talk Sylvanas.

You could argue that she hasn't been good since she was alive. As a Banshee used by the Scourge and later as the leader of the Forsaken, she has done extremely questionable things: she betrayed Garithos (not that the guy didn't have it coming,) and she has overseen the development of the Blight as well as experiments on captives. She has had human towns like Hillsbrad and Southshore wiped out. She invaded Gilneas, using Val'kyr to raise defenders as Forsaken who are clearly being at least a little bit mind-controlled (either through magic or psychological manipulation,) she tried to enslave the Val'kyr in Stormheim, and of course most recently, she burned Teldrassil along with thousands of Night Elf civilians.

One could argue that some of these actions had noble motivations behind them, but doesn't any good villain think they're the good guy?

Bolvar and Sylvanas have a connection, despite the fact that I don't think they've ever properly met. It was the vision of Bolvar encased within the Frozen Throne that led Sylvanas to jump off the top of Icecrown Citadel, which of course then led to her resurrection by the Val'kyr.

Sylvanas was far from perfect before that point, but she does seem to have gone down a more villainous route since then.

And now, as Warchief of the Horde, team red has been employing a lot more necromancy in their fight against the Alliance. We saw this at the Siege of Lordaeron, when Sylvanas was able to raise hundreds of skeletons of those slain by the Blight to attack the Alliance.

When did she get this power? And more importantly, how much is she going to use it?

One of the biggest critiques against Sylvanas is that, as she raises fallen humans as new Forsaken to help her, you know, kill more humans to raise as Forsaken, the distinction between her and the Lich King is growing thinner. Indeed, when Garrosh (of all people) asks her what difference there is between her and Arthas, she responds that she serves the Horde. Now that she's in charge of the Horde, that distinction becomes almost meaningless.

The Forsaken are starting to look more like the Scourge. What does the Lich King think of that?

Consider that Bolvar's self-appointed duty was to essentially regulate the undead. He doesn't want the Scourge to break off and sew mayhem across the world.

And what is Sylvanas if not a rogue Scourge agent sewing mayhem across the world?

Bolvar and Sylvanas are on a collision course. Each are becoming more powerful with each passing day. Sylvanas has the Horde at her back, but a Horde that is worried about the direction that she is taking them. Bolvar has been far quieter in his actions, first establishing an alliance with the Ebon Blade, yes, but how much else is he doing behind the scenes? Is Darion Mograine, who was re-killed and then re-raised and is thus, presumably under the Lich King's control once again, just the tip of the iceburg?

The spirits that pushed Jaina to raise her father's flagship from the depths could simply be metaphorical, as the folks at Blizzardwatch have suggested, but what if they're not?

Are we going to see Sylvanas forced to reckon with the Scourge proper as she attempts to become the ultimate undead badass on the globe? And if Sylvanas and Bolvar do begin a war, who wins, and who amongst us survives?

Where is Warbringers: Azshara?

We got Jaina's awesome sea-shanty (I think technically a sea-dirge, but oh well) the first week of the War of Thorns, and then we of course got Sylvanas' at the moment of the Burning of Teldrassil, given that it was directly part of that plot. So when do we get Azshara?

One thing I'm curious about is its subject. The brief snippets we saw in the trailer seem to indicate that it will show her transformation into a Naga, but something I realized is that the previous two primarily took place at about the same time.

Jaina raises her father's ship roughly around the same time Teldrassil is burned. How do I know that? It's admittedly circumstantial, but when Anduin and company goes to confront Sylvanas in the Lordaeron throne room, he lays the crime of destroying Teldrassil out as the main reason they've come for her. If you watch Jaina in the background, her reaction seems to be one of shock and surprise - it seems very clear that she did not know this had happened.

This makes her entrance a bit more of a surprise. It's possible she found out the Alliance was sailing north to attack Lordaeron, but if she were able to find out that, why not Teldrassil? Was it pure coincidence that she decided to attack Undercity right as the Alliance was besieging it?

Anyway, the timing makes it plausible that both Warbringers shorts we've seen are set at the same time. They each, of course, also talk about defining moments in their subjects' past - Sylvanas losing all sense of hope when she sees how fruitless her efforts to defend Quel'thalas have been, and Jaina reckoning with the sacrifice of her father for a peace that turned out to be hollow - which could suggest that we'll be seeing Azshara's transformation, but also check in with her in the modern day to see what she's up to.

We know that Azshara will be a major villain in BFA - though not its final boss. So we need to learn about her activities and motivations soon.

I look forward to it. Jaina's Warbringer short was one of the best things they've ever done, and Sylvanas', while certainly making controversial character choices, was very effectively dramatic. So I'm looking forward to what's coming.

Two Days Out until Battle for Azeroth

With a global launch in 48 hours and twelve minutes (as I write this sentence,) we're already in the biggest state of upheaval lore-wise since WoW launched. Two of the original six vanilla capital cities are gone (accessible via Bronze Dragon Zidormi as they've tended to do with removing old content post-Cataclysm.) While we didn't lose any major lore figures the way that we did in the beginning of Legion, many Horde players may have lost faith in theirs. Saurfang has had a hard time living up to his honorable ideals and has now been captured by the Alliance, while Sylvanas has gone into full super-villain mode with her genocidal actions and her willingness to blight-bomb her own troops if it means hitting the enemy.

On a game-mechanics side of things, we've also seen our artifacts de-powered to the point of being generic weapons - and some of us have replaced our beloved weapons with new generic ones from Darkshore world quests.

Transmogging new weapons to look like your artifacts is more flexible than it has been previously. Two-handed weapons (like a caster staff) can be transmogged to look like two-piece sets (like the Skull of the Man'ari and Thalkiel) though these are still limited to spec (sadly no awesome Judgment-themed Silver Hand for your Ret spec, unfortunately.)

Every spec has seen some changes, but a handful (Survival Hunter is the one I'm thinking about the most) have undergone extensive changes.

Some of those changes involve integrating ideas from the artifact weapons into the spec, while others have been your standard between-expansions re-works.

In terms of game systems, most players have yet to experience Island Expeditions and Warfronts, the two new major group content features of the expansion. Expeditions will largely be similar to the three-player scenarios from Mists of Pandaria, with a theme of competing against a group from the other faction to secure Azerite. There will be a PvP version of this, though most follows a PvE model.

As with any expansion, we have new zones, dungeons, and raids to look forward to.

Unlike any other expansion (other than vanilla, which technically wasn't an expansion,) we're getting two continents. The leveling experience for Alliance and Horde will thus be entirely different (a kind of expansion of the Shadowmoon Valley/Frostfire Ridge separation.) The Alliance will navigate islands of Kul Tiras, investigating the supernatural and political threats to the safety of the island nation as they try to secure their legendary navy. The Horde will attempt to defeat the evil cult rotting out the heart of the Zandalari Empire to secure the Empire's fleet for their purposes.

It's debatable whether you would consider the first four allied races as a Legion or BFA feature (though given that they require a pre-purchase of the expansion, I'd say the latter,) but BFA brings two more in 8.0 with another two promised in a subsequent patch (I'm assuming 8.1.)

In 8.0 we'll get two of the three most-requested Allied Race options (before the term "Allied Race" had been introduced): Dark Iron Dwarves for the Alliance and Mag'har Orcs for the Horde.

Professions are also undergoing a change, with each expansion block counted as a separate skill, meaning that if you pick up, say, Blacksmithing upon your arrival in Zandalar, you should be just as ready to start smithing as the guy who's been pumping out Fel Core Hound mounts for the last year and a half. The one downside here, though, is that if you want to go and produce stuff from older content and you had not reached their skill threshold, you won't be able to rely on low-requirement but high-skill-up recipes as we had in Legion.

Honor is now an account-wide stat, meaning that you can feel free to switch characters as you like when working on honor rewards. It's retroactive, too, so if you did even moderate amounts of PvP or their associated world quests in Legion, you could very possibly have the PvP artifact appearances (at least the first tier.)

One small detail for transmog farming - raids from expansions before the previous one will be subject to "legacy raid rules," which means that even on flexible modes, they should drop the maximum amount of loot. I'm not entirely sure how this will work, as currently Warlords of Draenor raids still shrink the loot tables to the minimum, but it's possible that the rules don't go into effect until we're 120.

Leveling should work the following way:

If you've done the Battle of Lordaeron, you'll be able to move on to the starting quests for the new continents. Both involve prisons, and the Horde actually has a mission to Stormwind before they go to Zandalar, while the Alliance heads directly to Kul Tiras (though the events a little messy, as the Alliance intro is technically a response to the Horde one.)

Questing will be broken up a little on the main continents with shorter quest chains to establish bases in enemy territory, so your human can go do a little questing in, say, Vol'dun between completing whole quest chains in Drustvar and Stormsong Valley.

There are four level-up dungeons per continent, with the other continent's dungeons opening up at the level cap. Finally, there is a pair of Mythic-only dungeons that I believe will cap off the stories of each continent and are, of course, limited to the cap.

Finally, about three weeks after the expansion launches, we'll be getting Uldir, BFA's first (and actually the only announced) raid. Uldir is in the center of the swampy Nazmir zone in Zandalar, and is a corrupted Titan facility in which a hideous creature called G'huun has emerged as a "Blood God."

From there, we don't know exactly what we're getting, but we do know that Azshara will be the final boss of a subsequent raid, though not BFA's last one.

There are a lot of big questions about the plot of the expansion - will we see the Horde fractured once again as their Warchief's villainy turns on her own people? Will we see the Alliance sacrifice some of its ideals in the name of survival - or revenge? Will we discover that there is some darker, more supernatural force that is manipulating things behind the scenes?

Alliance versus Horde After Lordaeron

In one way, the destruction of both Teldrassil and Lordaeron City has balanced things. Aside from Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles in the west and Quel'thalas in the east, each faction more or less has control over one of WOW's original two continents.

It's an idea that less genocidal/ambitious Horde leaders have sometimes proposed as a solution to their conflict - if the Horde were given total control of Kalimdor and left the Eastern Kingdoms to the Alliance, perhaps things might settle down between them. Good fences make good neighbors, the logic goes, and putting an ocean between the factions could theoretically let each side find satisfaction with the territory available to them.

There is, to be fair, a kind of elegance to this as a solution. If each side simply resigns themselves to understanding one continent as belong to the Horde and one to the Alliance, it would deter aggressive action and potentially allow for tensions to cool off to the point where diplomacy could start being more of a thing.

Unfortunately, while this looks decent on paper, there are a lot of problems with it.

First off is the ever-present issue of grievance. Sylvanas just committed an act of genocide against the Night Elves. The Night Elves would be very unlikely to accept their historic territories in Kalimdor even if the War of Thorns had been won with whatever Saurfang considers honor. If the Horde had won without massacring thousands of civilians, you'd still see Kaldorei resisting Horde domination of that territory. But after the burning of Teldrassil, I imagine many Night Elves, even those who wanted peace, would now accept no other outcome than the dismantling of the Horde, the death of Sylvanas and Saurfang, and maybe even the destruction of Orgrimmar.

This is just the latest in a series of grievances the various Alliance races have against the Horde. Its first act as an organization, after all, was an unprovoked war against the Draenei in which just a fraction of the exiled Eredar survived. Add to that the, again, unprovoked war on Stormwind that left the city in ruins, followed by the unprovoked war against the rest of the Eastern Kingdoms. There's the death of Cenarius (which, ok, stings less now that we know he can come back from the dead,) and the... again, unprovoked invasion of Gilneas, and then the destruction of Theramore, attacking the city of a person who had, until that point, always been an advocate for peace with the Horde.

The Horde does have its grievances with the Alliance, and while a lot of them pointedly ignore the reasons (the internment camps, for example, were the bad choice in a bad and worse set of options. They couldn't send the Orcs back to Outland. Would the ideal solution have been to integrate them into human society? I'd play a tabletop RPG set in that alternate history,) some are more legitimate. Take Garithos' treatment of the Blood Elves following the Third War for example, or the Dwarves' unauthorized archaeological excavations in Tauren land. The Forsaken complaint that the living have treated them as if they were just as bad as the Scourge used to hold a lot of weight, though more recently that's like Billy Idol complaining that people act as if his hair is bleached (to be fair, at his age it might not be now. Maybe that's a bad metaphor.)

Likewise, the Blood Elves remember how their ancestors were exiled by not just the Night Elves as a people, but their actual existing leadership, for practicing Arcane Magic, despite the fact that they later embraced it.

Bad blood is, more than anything, the problem at the heart of it all. It's unfortunate that the two sides never seem to let their periods of cooperation wash away that animus, and an area where I think players sometimes feel railroaded by the game's makers (but I digress.) But on top of that are also some less emotional and more practical issues.

Territory is a big one. Let's take the relatively simple one of northern Kalimdor first:

The Tauren lived in central Kalimdor for generations as nomadic tribes, but it was a hard life that required them to constantly fight for survival against marauding centaurs. When the Orcs arrived in Kalimdor, they introduced a more sedentary lifestyle that was also somewhat new to their culture. But such a culture required a system for farming and building. The areas they had were arid, lacking wood for construction and fertile land for food. To the north, however, were lush forests that had been cultivated through druidic magic for thousands of years. Utterly enormous trees were plentiful, meaning easy resources for construction, and presumably the area is also rich in arable land.

The Night Elves did not share that land.

Now, we could debate back and forth whether they should have. On one hand the Horde never once tried asking politely, saying "hey, we're here to fight the Legion. Mind helping us get settled before we do?" On the other hand, why hadn't the Night Elves already extended their resources to help the Tauren, a people they had historically been on good terms with?

You could argue that the Horde was foolish to build Orgrimmar without the resources required to maintain it, but it's not clear there was anywhere else for them to settle. Whose problem that is depends on your point of view.

But when we get into the northern part of the Eastern Kingdoms (interesting that the clashes all tend toward the northern parts of the continents,) we have issues that are less about resources than history.

Lordaeron was one of the most important human kingdoms. It was second only to Stormwind in population (if I recall correctly) and was the founding member of the Alliance, using its resources and political sway to get the other kingdoms along with Dun Morogh and Quel'thalas together to face the Horde.

Lordaeron is undeniably historical Alliance territory. But the undead plague and the rise of the Scourge, followed by that of the Forsaken, super-complicates that matter. Generally, we tend to think the Scourge does not deserve any territory - they're evil and should be destroyed. When the people who are now Forsaken first became undead (not counting those who were raised later,) the living humans of Lordaeron were, I think we'd all agree, justified in fighting them and destroying them wherever they could in order to try to purge the undead from the kingdom.

What complicates this is that when they regained their free will, what exactly did that mean for their identity? Were they simply the same people who had always lived there, only rotted and stinky? Were they still the kingdom of Lordaeron? And did they still have a claim to that land?

Setting aside the ethical/moral complications of that, imagine just the logistics. Say your uncle dies and he leaves you his house. You go there, you move in, and you sign the deed to the place. Then your uncle comes back as a rotting corpse. He's still your uncle, but legally, once he died, ownership of that house transferred to you. Are you obligated to give it back - legally, I mean, not morally?

Now, let's imagine that you've actually heard about people rising from the grave as zombies, and not the mindless Romero zombies, but clever and cruel and murderous Scourge who are capable of deception.

Do you even give your uncle a chance to make a case for himself? And if you do, do you believe him?

So that's where we start - living humans have a, frankly, understandably hard time taking the Forsaken at their word. Now let's move forward:

Your uncle, infuriated by the fact that you won't give him your house back (or so he claims,) gathers up a bunch of other zombies and tries to break in, then gets a bunch of plague together and bombards the house with it, trying to kill you.

At this point, do you even care if he's Scourge or not? He's undead, using necromantic weapons in an attempt to kill you.

From his perspective, all he wants is his goddamned house back, but the methods he has taken, which he rationalizes as simple pragmatism, are making it impossible for you to concede that, yeah, technically, this should be his house.

So yes, if the Forsaken had been treated with more trust early on in their development, things might not have gotten nearly so bad. But on the other hand, for the Forsaken to expect such a level of trust is utterly unreasonable. Still, each side sees themselves as the aggrieved, and even though the Scarlet Crusade was largely rejected by the Alliance (their partial acceptance of them was primarily based in ignorance,) the Forsaken couldn't help but see the Scarlets as representing all of the Alliance, and the Alliance couldn't help but see the Forsaken as little better than the Scourge.

Now, to finish things off, let's talk Quel'thalas.

There's bound to be resistance fighters - Night Elves in Kalidmor, and Forsaken in Lordaeron. But one area that is in the middle of some crazy upheaval is Quel'thalas.

Lor'themar is in a really, really bad situation right now. Let's explain:

Silvermoon's biggest ally was Undercity, and while the actual loss of life at the Battle of Lordaeron was small (Sylvanas herself was responsible for a significant fraction of Horde losses,) her relocating to Kalimdor, and indeed the whole potential plan of separating the factions by continent (I assume most people don't know Sylvanas' plan to plague-bomb Stormwind and turn every last human into Forsaken) leaves Lor'themar high and dry. There is basically one tiny pocket of Horde territory left in the Eastern Kingdoms.

So that would be pretty bad. But that's not all.

Given that it's a playable race, we can probably assume that the Void Elves are actually a significant chunk of the Blood Elf population who have rejected the Horde and joined the Alliance. And they're led by Alleria Windrunner, former Ranger-General of Quel'thalas. Throw in the High Elves under Vereesa Windrunner, who never accepted Kael'thas' embrace of fel magic (I don't really know why Vereesa and her Silver Covenant folks didn't suffer magic withdrawal like the Wretched, but maybe the Kirin Tor helped them out with that,) and at least in terms of "number of High Elf factions," the Alliance is currently leading. The Alliance also has two out of three Windrunner sisters.

But the most important thing is that Lor'themar has no home-field advantage. Generally, when fighting a defensive war, you can use your knowledge of the terrain as a big advantage over invaders. You have people who spent their entire lives in your territory and who know every hidden valley to stockpile weapons, or every mountain cave in which to hide out. You know where to force your enemy to strike to put them at disadvantage.

But Lor'themar can't do that. Even if you take the fact that the High Elves and Alleria have been away for so long that Lor'themar had been able to build new defenses and anticipate their potential strategies, the Void Elves have been part of Horde society up until very recently.

In fact, the Void Elves are the only example we have of former Horde members joining the Alliance. The notion that trusted friends and colleagues could use their knowledge against you is not something that the Horde has ever had to deal with.

The Horde's advantage should they ever wish to take Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles is primarily that the Draenei would be unlikely to fight too hard to keep them. I imagine that if it became clear that they were coming for the islands after Teldrassil, Velen would pragmatically evacuate, and the Draenei are very well-practiced in pulling up stakes and leaving - only this time they'd only have to go to the other side of the world rather than find an entirely new one. Frankly I'm surprised that Sylvanas hasn't just raised the possibility to see if she can get them essentially for free.

But the Blood Elves are much more settled down in Quel'thalas, and an evacuation would cause a lot of logistical problems, but also a lot of political ones. The Alliance has proven itself capable of welcoming Sin'dorei back into the fold with open arms. I highly doubt that they'd only let those who embraced the Ren'dorei's weird void magic in either, as those who didn't could just call themselves Quel'dorei.

If the Alliance wanted to play smart in Quel'thalas, they would have Vereesa leading the efforts to re-take Quel'thalas and pitch the Alliance to every Blood Elf she saw. The Void Elves might put some off, but they'd have every tactical advantage they needed, and if Anduin basically says "hey guys, if you join us you'd be under our protection. We're disappointed you went Horde before, but you know there's always a place with us if you want it," it might not convert every last Blood Elves, but you can bet there would be more and more defections, and such a thing could cascade into the Alliance taking Silvermoon.

Lor'themar, I think, has two potential tools he can use to fend such a thing off, but it's no guarantee they would work. First, he'd put the creepiness of the Void Elves center stage. Not only did these elves defect, but they're also harnessing powers that are even less understood than the Fel. The Blood Elves are still trying to cleanse themselves of the Legion's brief but terrible influence on them (and given that some Blood Elves are getting Holy-golden eyes, it seems to be working,) and drinking deep of void-insanity that even gives you weird hair-tentacles sometimes is probably a terrible, terrible idea. The other note, one that I think Lor'themar would be more hesitant to use, is that Sylvanas Windrunner would make it her sworn duty to kill every last elf that defected from her Horde.

But make no mistake: every Ren'dorei or Quel'dorei that shows themselves happy and welcome in the Alliance is going to make it harder for Lor'themar to keep his Sin'dorei loyal to the Horde.

The balance of power has been thrown for a spin, and we're obviously still trying to figure out where it ends up. Undercity was a gambit that did not really pay off for Sylvanas, but I think that Teldrassil, while a moral atrocity, is certainly a strategic gain for the Horde in the short term.

Still, the Horde is poised to lose territory now, and not in a position to gain very much. We'll have to see where things go from here.