Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Warfronts: Hurry Up and Wait

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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