Way back in 2005, before I even started playing the game, there were rumors that the first expansion for the instant-classic game would be a trip into the Emerald Dream. The Dream as a concept was briefly touched on in Warcraft III with the introduction of the Night Elves, but the nature of the Dream and the existence of the Nightmare did not come about until World of Warcraft (the same can be said about the Old Gods - who are hinted at but never named in Warcraft III's Frozen Throne expansion.)
So for essentially twelve years (if we count 2004, when WoW launched,) people have been confidently expecting that the next expansion would be the Emerald Dream (ok, for the past two people have been convinced that it would be "The Dark Below," which wound up being a Destiny expansion.)
One of the problems Blizzard has had, though, is that the Emerald Dream is meant to be a version of Azeroth in which there are no humanoids or any of their works or effects. That means a massive continent of Proto-Kalimdor, but also means that there's basically nothing interesting there.
Still, the idea of the Nightmare - a corruption spreading through the Emerald Dream - has been a rather important plot point within the game for a while. The Emerald Nightmare gave us the Dragons of Nightmare world bosses (who disappeared some time before Cataclysm, and not with it, if I recall) and also seemingly had some connection to the Sunken Temple dungeon (which used to be a lot larger.) Eranikus, the final boss of Sunken Temple, was strongly connected to the Nightmare, and there seems to be some implication that Hakkar the Soulflayer, an evil Loa worshipped by the Gurubashi Trolls (and we now know that Loa are the same as Night Elf Ancients and Pandaren Celestials, who are all now grouped under the blanket term "Wild Gods,") is tied to the Nightmare as well.
Warcraft Chronicle also explicitly told us how the Nightmare came to be - druids attempted to create a new World Tree in Grizzly Hills called Vordrassil, which we now know as the Grizzlemaw. It was planted too close to the prison of Yogg-Saron, and the Old God's essence was able to seep into the Dream this way and manifest as the Nightmare.
Making the Emerald Nightmare a raid rather than an expansion-supporting continent has thus allowed them to get away with a large area that doesn't really have "buildings" per se - in fact, what we're seeing is a kind of raid I dreamed up many years ago - a kind of shadowy realm of monstrous beasts.
It's exciting that the Nightmare is finally getting a definitive aesthetic as well - you'll see lots of black and red with perhaps some purple. The Nightmare's connection to the Old Gods is also apparent, such as Ilgynoth, which has very C'thun-like eyes, and also many of the creatures we fight within it resemble the Sha. Yet while it is clearly connected to the Old Gods, the Nightmare looks very distinct - and it will also be a clear visual break from the black-and-green look of the Burning Legion.
We're also seeing the Nightmare Dragons given entirely new models - they're still obviously dragons, but they're very different from the ones we've encountered in the past. (Even if the Dragons of Nightmare, who we fight as a group-boss, are literally dragons we've encountered in the past.)
I'm expecting to find more clarification as we quest through Val'sharah, but I'm beginning to get the impression that while Xavius is deeply tied to the Nightmare and has been empowered by it, it is ultimately a force he intends to use to help the Burning Legion. I'm curious what the Old Gods think of that - the Legion's mission is their destruction, but perhaps the Old Gods revel in any chaos, even that which destroys themselves, and thus are happy to see any spread of their corruption for whatever purpose.
I am somewhat concerned about burning through the Nightmare in a single raid - I hope that it will continue to play a part in WoW to come, but I suspect that we'll never see it quite as front-and-center. Druids will be getting Nightmare-themed weapon appearances for PvP, but I do sort of lament the fact that there won't be Nightmare-themed weapon drops for all classes. (And armor, for that matter.) Perhaps we'll see in time.
Anyway, as I write this it's still Monday, but when this posts Legion should be only one week away. I know I'm very excited to go to the Broken Isles. In fact, for the first time since Cataclysm I'm going into an expansion with no experience in the Beta, and thus it will really be a whole new world for me to explore. I've devised a simple method to randomize the order in which I do the zones (a simple D&D trick called a d4, with the level up zones being numbered west to east.) I'm honestly pretty excited about all of them, but I'm very eager to see how much of Val'sharah is corrupted by the Nightmare.
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
Monday, August 22, 2016
Legion: Eight Days Out - Artifact Weapons
One of the key features of the Legion expansion is going to be the use of Artifact Weapons. The first major quest chain you get will be to get an artifact weapon (or set of weapons,) and you will continue using that weapon throughout the entire expansion.
Each specialization has its own artifact, and each artifact has its own story and background. Some of these will be familiar: for example, Retribution Paladins get the Ashbringer and Balance Druids get the Scythe of Elune. As many famous weapons as there are in Warcraft lore, there aren't really 36 famous weapons that would work for every single spec in the game, so many of these weapons are new inventions. That being said, each still comes with a backstory, and many of them have relationships with important figures of the past. The Shadow Priest artifact, for example, is a dagger and an off-hand book. The dagger is literally the claw from an Old God's (I believe N'zoth's) tentacle and was used as a ritual blade back in the era of the Black Empire - before the Pantheon came to Azeroth. Protection Warriors get a shield made from one of Deathwing's scales.
Artifacts will grow in power in two ways.
We'll start with the more complicated way.
Doing more or less anything in game (so questing, running dungeons, doing PvP, or even finding treasures or interested NPCs) will grant you artifact power. You can think of this a little like experience for your artifact weapon.
Each weapon has traits that can be unlocked at the cost of artifact power, with each subsequent trait costing more. Each weapon has one inherent ability (this "trait" is really just a starting point for working on the artifact trait "tree,) and completing the acquisition quest will give you the artifact power to get the first minor trait. Minor traits are either a single rank or have three ranks, and in order to progress beyond one of these three-rank traits in the tree, you'll have to unlock all three ranks.
Most minor traits do simple things, like boosting the damage of Crusader Strike by 5/10/15%. Some do somewhat more complex things, but minor traits generally give you a simple percentage boost on one of your abilities.
In addition to your inherent ability, each artifact also has three major traits, which have more profound effects, such as a Balance Druid trait that gives your Starsurge a chance to summon Goldrinn to attack your foe. These major traits will be farther out along the trait tree, and are all a single rank.
Finally, if you've filled out all of your traits, you'll be able to invest any excess artifact power you acquire into a 50-rank trait that gives you some flat bonus like increased damage (at a very gradual rate.)
My understanding is that artifact power is only acquired for the weapon you're currently using, though I'm hoping that's not the case (as I'd like to quest as Retribution but dedicate my artifact power to boosting my Protection artifact.)
While these traits are certainly going to add up to a significant increase in power, there's another very important aspect to upgrading your artifact: Relics.
Each artifact weapon starts at item level 750 (I believe the max item level for weapons out of Mythic Hellfire Citadel is 725, which is also the max upgrade for invasion weapons, so they clearly want everyone to ditch their old stuff.) But obviously, over the course of the expansion we'll want our weapons to keep up with our gear. Thus: Relics.
Each artifact weapon has three relic slots - two that are available from level 100, and one that unlocks at level 110. Relics come in several varieties - there are Life, Holy, Storm, Frost, Iron, Blood, Fel, Shadow, Fire, and Arcane. Each artifact will have a mix of relic slots - for example, Ashbringer has two Holy slots and one Fire slot. The Doomhammer has one Fire, one Iron, and one Storm relic slot.
Relics will increase the item level of your artifact, such that when you get a full set of relics from, say, the Emerald Nightmare, your weapon should be equivalent to the other pieces of gear from that raid.
Relics will also increase the ranks of one of your minor traits. For example, if you have the Sunflare Coal plugged into your Doomhammer, not only will it raise the item level of the weapon by 51 points, but it will give you a fourth rank of "Forged in Lava." Normally, at three ranks Forged in Lava makes your Lava Lash 10% stronger, but this fourth rank will increase that bonus to 13%.
My general understanding is that these trait increases are mainly to use when you need to break a tie between two equivalent relics. For example, taking Exothermic Core instead of that Sunflare Coal will still increase the Doomhammer's item level by the same amount, but instead of boosting Lava Lash you'll increase the bonus to Maelstrom generation of your Rockbiter ability.
Relics will essentially be the weapon drops of the expansion, but I also believe that once socketed, replacing them will destroy them. So if you get some nice Holy Relic that you put into your Truthguard (Protection Paladin artifact shield,) you won't be able to swap it into your Ashbringer when you get something better.
Cosmetically, artifact weapons will each have several variations. At Legion's launch there will be four models (and a fifth hidden one,) and each variant model (including the original) will have four color variations. Unlocking each model and color will require various tasks, and it is highly likely that over the course of the expansion, we're going to see new models introduced.
If you can't stand your artifact's look no matter how many appearances you unlock, you will still be able to transmog over it. However, it will still be limited by weapon type. Fire Mages, for example, get a one-handed sword and an off-hand item, so if you like some staff model on your fire mage, you're a bit out of luck.
That said, there are some appearances that seem to change the weapon type - such as a variation on the Beast Mastery gun that turns it into a bow - so perhaps Blizzard will find a way to loosen transmog restrictions.
Each specialization has its own artifact, and each artifact has its own story and background. Some of these will be familiar: for example, Retribution Paladins get the Ashbringer and Balance Druids get the Scythe of Elune. As many famous weapons as there are in Warcraft lore, there aren't really 36 famous weapons that would work for every single spec in the game, so many of these weapons are new inventions. That being said, each still comes with a backstory, and many of them have relationships with important figures of the past. The Shadow Priest artifact, for example, is a dagger and an off-hand book. The dagger is literally the claw from an Old God's (I believe N'zoth's) tentacle and was used as a ritual blade back in the era of the Black Empire - before the Pantheon came to Azeroth. Protection Warriors get a shield made from one of Deathwing's scales.
Artifacts will grow in power in two ways.
We'll start with the more complicated way.
Doing more or less anything in game (so questing, running dungeons, doing PvP, or even finding treasures or interested NPCs) will grant you artifact power. You can think of this a little like experience for your artifact weapon.
Each weapon has traits that can be unlocked at the cost of artifact power, with each subsequent trait costing more. Each weapon has one inherent ability (this "trait" is really just a starting point for working on the artifact trait "tree,) and completing the acquisition quest will give you the artifact power to get the first minor trait. Minor traits are either a single rank or have three ranks, and in order to progress beyond one of these three-rank traits in the tree, you'll have to unlock all three ranks.
Most minor traits do simple things, like boosting the damage of Crusader Strike by 5/10/15%. Some do somewhat more complex things, but minor traits generally give you a simple percentage boost on one of your abilities.
In addition to your inherent ability, each artifact also has three major traits, which have more profound effects, such as a Balance Druid trait that gives your Starsurge a chance to summon Goldrinn to attack your foe. These major traits will be farther out along the trait tree, and are all a single rank.
Finally, if you've filled out all of your traits, you'll be able to invest any excess artifact power you acquire into a 50-rank trait that gives you some flat bonus like increased damage (at a very gradual rate.)
My understanding is that artifact power is only acquired for the weapon you're currently using, though I'm hoping that's not the case (as I'd like to quest as Retribution but dedicate my artifact power to boosting my Protection artifact.)
While these traits are certainly going to add up to a significant increase in power, there's another very important aspect to upgrading your artifact: Relics.
Each artifact weapon starts at item level 750 (I believe the max item level for weapons out of Mythic Hellfire Citadel is 725, which is also the max upgrade for invasion weapons, so they clearly want everyone to ditch their old stuff.) But obviously, over the course of the expansion we'll want our weapons to keep up with our gear. Thus: Relics.
Each artifact weapon has three relic slots - two that are available from level 100, and one that unlocks at level 110. Relics come in several varieties - there are Life, Holy, Storm, Frost, Iron, Blood, Fel, Shadow, Fire, and Arcane. Each artifact will have a mix of relic slots - for example, Ashbringer has two Holy slots and one Fire slot. The Doomhammer has one Fire, one Iron, and one Storm relic slot.
Relics will increase the item level of your artifact, such that when you get a full set of relics from, say, the Emerald Nightmare, your weapon should be equivalent to the other pieces of gear from that raid.
Relics will also increase the ranks of one of your minor traits. For example, if you have the Sunflare Coal plugged into your Doomhammer, not only will it raise the item level of the weapon by 51 points, but it will give you a fourth rank of "Forged in Lava." Normally, at three ranks Forged in Lava makes your Lava Lash 10% stronger, but this fourth rank will increase that bonus to 13%.
My general understanding is that these trait increases are mainly to use when you need to break a tie between two equivalent relics. For example, taking Exothermic Core instead of that Sunflare Coal will still increase the Doomhammer's item level by the same amount, but instead of boosting Lava Lash you'll increase the bonus to Maelstrom generation of your Rockbiter ability.
Relics will essentially be the weapon drops of the expansion, but I also believe that once socketed, replacing them will destroy them. So if you get some nice Holy Relic that you put into your Truthguard (Protection Paladin artifact shield,) you won't be able to swap it into your Ashbringer when you get something better.
Cosmetically, artifact weapons will each have several variations. At Legion's launch there will be four models (and a fifth hidden one,) and each variant model (including the original) will have four color variations. Unlocking each model and color will require various tasks, and it is highly likely that over the course of the expansion, we're going to see new models introduced.
If you can't stand your artifact's look no matter how many appearances you unlock, you will still be able to transmog over it. However, it will still be limited by weapon type. Fire Mages, for example, get a one-handed sword and an off-hand item, so if you like some staff model on your fire mage, you're a bit out of luck.
That said, there are some appearances that seem to change the weapon type - such as a variation on the Beast Mastery gun that turns it into a bow - so perhaps Blizzard will find a way to loosen transmog restrictions.
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Legion: Nine Days Out - Demon Hunters
Legion is only a little over a week away, but one of its biggest features - the Demon Hunter hero class - is already available to play. I know that I've been taking my DH around on several demon invasions, I've tanked a few dungeons on him (and DPS'd one,) and I've been taking him through old dungeons and raids as I hunt for transmog pieces (I've actually been able to solo the first two bosses of Throne of Thunder as Vengeance, the first one on 25-player mode.)
We don't really have the entire Demon Hunter arsenal yet - while other classes have their full complement of talents and will only have to worry about their artifact weapons when it comes to progressing through the Broken Isles, Demon Hunters are going to keep unlocking new talents every two levels until level 110. This does mean that they are at a slight disadvantage for now, but it's not a terribly large one. Still, it will be interesting to see how talent builds turn out once we have access to the whole range. Personally I'm really enjoying my Momentum/Prepared "build," though the cooldown on Fel Rush becomes more of an issue when doing heroics and things are dying very quickly.
The Demon Hunter starting experience is quite good - I need to go back and do it on a different character now that I have access to my far newer and more powerful desktop computer, so that I can really search Mardum for all the hidden treasures. It's also pretty cool to get an early look at the Vault of the Wardens dungeon, which is pretty huge.
In some ways, the level of uniqueness that Demon Hunters get makes me almost wish that they had been able to do similar things for Death Knights - like totally new voice acting and additional character customization features. That said, if they had done all that unique model stuff beyond simple additional face and skins, we probably would have been far more limited in race choices for Death Knights - I could imagine them limiting it to Humans, Dwarfs, Undead, and Blood Elves, which would have left my Draenei out in the cold as it were.
Of course, Demon Hunters are only so unique because of the lessons Blizzard learned making the Death Knight and the Monk.
Gameplay-wise, Demon Hunter do seem to embody the new design philosophy - a very simple core rotation, but with lots of things you can add into it with talents. Havoc, for example, before you take talents into account, is basically Demon Bite and Chaos Strike, with Eye Beam on a fairly long cooldown (theorycrafting even suggests that on single targets, Eye Beam isn't even worth it, though I think Blizzard will either buff that or nerf Chaos Strike a bit to make it more attractive.) But with talents you can make Vengeful Retreat, Fel Rush, Throw Glaive, Blade Dance for single targets, and even Chaos Nova a significant part of your rotation.
On the other hand, Vengeance is not so simple - you have a pretty complex set of utility cooldowns and things like Sigil of Flame and Fiery Brand that you've got to work in in the right way. I'm given to understand that they've been a little weak on the beta, but I'd bet this is just a tuning thing (and of course, a lack of experience for those playing the class.)
Demon Hunters have had a strong debut, and there's an interesting story behind them. I'm eager to see the emergence of interesting Demon Hunter characters - there's no obvious Thassarian/Koltira pairing yet.
I'm also eager to see the look of the demon hunter evolve over time - getting our artifacts with all their different appearances will be a big step forward (right now there are only three warglaive models one has access to for transmog) but I'm also really curious to see how the tier sets evolve.
We don't really have the entire Demon Hunter arsenal yet - while other classes have their full complement of talents and will only have to worry about their artifact weapons when it comes to progressing through the Broken Isles, Demon Hunters are going to keep unlocking new talents every two levels until level 110. This does mean that they are at a slight disadvantage for now, but it's not a terribly large one. Still, it will be interesting to see how talent builds turn out once we have access to the whole range. Personally I'm really enjoying my Momentum/Prepared "build," though the cooldown on Fel Rush becomes more of an issue when doing heroics and things are dying very quickly.
The Demon Hunter starting experience is quite good - I need to go back and do it on a different character now that I have access to my far newer and more powerful desktop computer, so that I can really search Mardum for all the hidden treasures. It's also pretty cool to get an early look at the Vault of the Wardens dungeon, which is pretty huge.
In some ways, the level of uniqueness that Demon Hunters get makes me almost wish that they had been able to do similar things for Death Knights - like totally new voice acting and additional character customization features. That said, if they had done all that unique model stuff beyond simple additional face and skins, we probably would have been far more limited in race choices for Death Knights - I could imagine them limiting it to Humans, Dwarfs, Undead, and Blood Elves, which would have left my Draenei out in the cold as it were.
Of course, Demon Hunters are only so unique because of the lessons Blizzard learned making the Death Knight and the Monk.
Gameplay-wise, Demon Hunter do seem to embody the new design philosophy - a very simple core rotation, but with lots of things you can add into it with talents. Havoc, for example, before you take talents into account, is basically Demon Bite and Chaos Strike, with Eye Beam on a fairly long cooldown (theorycrafting even suggests that on single targets, Eye Beam isn't even worth it, though I think Blizzard will either buff that or nerf Chaos Strike a bit to make it more attractive.) But with talents you can make Vengeful Retreat, Fel Rush, Throw Glaive, Blade Dance for single targets, and even Chaos Nova a significant part of your rotation.
On the other hand, Vengeance is not so simple - you have a pretty complex set of utility cooldowns and things like Sigil of Flame and Fiery Brand that you've got to work in in the right way. I'm given to understand that they've been a little weak on the beta, but I'd bet this is just a tuning thing (and of course, a lack of experience for those playing the class.)
Demon Hunters have had a strong debut, and there's an interesting story behind them. I'm eager to see the emergence of interesting Demon Hunter characters - there's no obvious Thassarian/Koltira pairing yet.
I'm also eager to see the look of the demon hunter evolve over time - getting our artifacts with all their different appearances will be a big step forward (right now there are only three warglaive models one has access to for transmog) but I'm also really curious to see how the tier sets evolve.
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Legion: Ten Days Out
We're on the cusp of World of Warcraft's sixth expansion. In many ways, this expansion feels like something that the entire game has been building toward. Tons of things that players have been wanting to see for over a decade are finally coming around:
We've finally gotten Demon Hunters as a playable class.
We're finally going into the Emerald Nightmare.
We're finally getting to wield a non-corrupted version of the Ashbringer (though this does imply that people who got it in Vanilla Naxx are officially non-canon, which to be fair we've known about since Wrath.)
We're finally going to see the Tomb of Sargeras (I'm assuming it will be a raid, possibly the final one.)
We're finally going to have an expansion in which the Burning Legion is center-stage as the main villain. Now, Burning Crusade came close, but much of our activity was split between the Legion and the Illidari (sometimes handled really poorly, like the fact that there was no clear point where Blood Elf characters realized that Kael'thas had gone evil.)
We're also seeing a return to focus on things that players have wanted Blizzard to work on, like bringing class quests back (in a big way - I don't think any of us expected class orders or artifact weapons.) Blizzard is also pushing a return to relevance of 5-player dungeons, something that they've failed to do for two expansions (well, ok, Mythic dungeons in Warlords offered good gear - my main is decked out largely in Mythic Dungeon gear - but they didn't really add anything new to the Mythic versions and we were stuck with only eight dungeons the whole expansion.)
And not only that, but we have an honest-to-Light pre-launch event. Yes, we technically had one for both Warlords and Mists, but the latter was literally just one scenario (and not even a very good one) and the former was limited almost entirely to a single zone and one short quest chain and a truncated version of one of the dungeons.
In fact, Legion's pre-launch event is in some ways a sort of soft launch of the expansion. Everything except for the invasions and the dreadlords in the capital cities is, I believe, slated to remain in-game as part of the pre-Broken Isles quest chain for players who hit 100 later or just have not been playing for the past weeks. But for most players, this will really be a fairly complex and entertaining pre-launch event.
There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about this expansion. I'm sure that we'll find ways to complain (we always do!) but I've got a good feeling about it.
We've finally gotten Demon Hunters as a playable class.
We're finally going into the Emerald Nightmare.
We're finally getting to wield a non-corrupted version of the Ashbringer (though this does imply that people who got it in Vanilla Naxx are officially non-canon, which to be fair we've known about since Wrath.)
We're finally going to see the Tomb of Sargeras (I'm assuming it will be a raid, possibly the final one.)
We're finally going to have an expansion in which the Burning Legion is center-stage as the main villain. Now, Burning Crusade came close, but much of our activity was split between the Legion and the Illidari (sometimes handled really poorly, like the fact that there was no clear point where Blood Elf characters realized that Kael'thas had gone evil.)
We're also seeing a return to focus on things that players have wanted Blizzard to work on, like bringing class quests back (in a big way - I don't think any of us expected class orders or artifact weapons.) Blizzard is also pushing a return to relevance of 5-player dungeons, something that they've failed to do for two expansions (well, ok, Mythic dungeons in Warlords offered good gear - my main is decked out largely in Mythic Dungeon gear - but they didn't really add anything new to the Mythic versions and we were stuck with only eight dungeons the whole expansion.)
And not only that, but we have an honest-to-Light pre-launch event. Yes, we technically had one for both Warlords and Mists, but the latter was literally just one scenario (and not even a very good one) and the former was limited almost entirely to a single zone and one short quest chain and a truncated version of one of the dungeons.
In fact, Legion's pre-launch event is in some ways a sort of soft launch of the expansion. Everything except for the invasions and the dreadlords in the capital cities is, I believe, slated to remain in-game as part of the pre-Broken Isles quest chain for players who hit 100 later or just have not been playing for the past weeks. But for most players, this will really be a fairly complex and entertaining pre-launch event.
There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about this expansion. I'm sure that we'll find ways to complain (we always do!) but I've got a good feeling about it.
Xavius and the Nightmare
The Emerald Nightmare has been one of those persistent concepts that WoW has touched on, but we've never really done much within it. There is one quest - part of a chain in Icecrown - where one travels to the Moonglade and steps into the Nightmare, and if I recall correctly, the nightmare is also present within the prison on Mount Hyjal where we evacuate Fandral Staghelm and unwittingly put him in the hands of one of Ragnaros' pawns.
For a long time we suspected the Old Gods might have something to do with the Nightmare, but for some reason the first Satyr Xavius is also associated with it.
World of Warcraft Chronicle cleared up a lot of things, but we are left with a seeming contradiction here.
We now know the root cause of the Emerald Nightmare, and while I didn't intend it, that was kind of a pun. The Night Elves tried to create multiple world trees - there's one in Val'sharah, one in Grizzly Hills, the enormous Teldrassil, and one, obviously, on Mount Hyjal. The latter of these, Nordrassil, served its function, nourished by the waters of the Well of Eternity (in fact it was planted there to sort of regulate the mini-well Illidan created after the Sundering.
Vordrassil, created in Grizzly Hills in Northrend, was planted too close to the prison of Yogg-Saron, and while the Old God was mostly contained within its prison of Ulduar, some of its tendrils were able to reach the roots of Vordrassil and allow corruption to seep into the Emerald Dream, creating the Nightmare as we now know it.
It's not clear if the other Old Gods were able to contribute to the Nightmare. For a long time there seem to have been hints that it was N'Zoth who was behind the dream - or that N'Zoth may actually live at the center of the Nightmare.
These theories seem to be falling apart, though. N'Zoth is probably somewhere beneath the ocean, probably near Vashj'ir (the enormous tentacles corrupting L'ghorek there might actually be N'Zoth's.) Obviously, the Old Gods are so enormous that they span the better part of continents. My theory is that all the twitching bug-structures in Tanaris, Un'goro, Feralas, and of course Silithus are actually parts of C'thun, and clearly anywhere you can find Saronite deposits, Yogg-Saron's anatomy must be somewhere nearby.
Still, Chronicle explicitly stated that the Nightmare is due to the corruption of the Old Gods seeping into the Dream, which is not terribly surprising. Given what we're seeing of the models and creatures within the Emerald Nightmare raid, they're definitely reinforcing this idea. Just in case Ilgynoth didn't look enough like something out of an HP Lovecraft story, there are also faceless ones (also known, according to Chronicle, as N'raqi,) that serve as adds during the fight.
But here's the thing:
Chronicle also tells us that the entire reason Sargeras started the Burning Legion was to destroy the Old Gods and any world that they might corrupt - in other words, all of them. Sargeras is unquestionably evil - for one thing, you'd imagine that the demons would be less sadistic if Sargeras really just wanted to euthanize the universe - but he justifies his actions because it would mean the defeat of the Old Gods and their creators, the Void Lords (beings we haven't even come close to encountering.)
So why is Xavius, a demon, affiliated with the Nightmare? Why does the Legion seem allied with the Nightmare? Or are they?
Here's the thing: The Legion doesn't exactly act in a manner that is true to its mission statement.
According to the official story, the Legion should simply use fel magic - that's fel, not shadow - to burn away every world in the universe. Just send a constant bombardment of Infernals and Abyssals and burn the planet to a crisp, then move on to the next world.
But that's the official story for Sargeras. And while he's evil and suffused with fel magic, Sargeras is not exactly a demon. He's a titan. The demons want things to burn, sure, but that's not the only thing they want.
The whole reason Sargeras turned on the universe is that he found a planet with a proto-Titan World Soul that was in the process of being corrupted by its own local set of Old Gods. What drew him there? Dreadlords, aka Nathrezim.
Nathrezim who were working for the Old Gods.
Demons don't inherently have anything against the Old Gods. They're only fighting them (and not really in a direct way) because Sargeras commanded them to - do it or die permanently. But demons are beings of chaos, and they don't really care what happens as long as they get to bring about mayhem and destruction.
The Legion has plenty of void and shadow magic going on within it - something that Sargeras would be unlikely to condone. Historically we've seen plenty of voidwalkers within their ranks (and we've been able to summon them as Warlocks since vanilla) despite the fact that they're technically not even demons (except for gameplay purposes.) How come?
Well, perhaps the Nathrezim never stopped serving the Old Gods.
Sargeras secured the allegiance of the original members of the Burning Legion through threat and coercion. He essentially said "the whole universe has got to go, but if you serve me you'll be last to die." That's plenty to motivate you to play along, but it also heavily incentivizes you to fail. The Nathrezim would probably prefer to keep on living, but with a freaking Titan breathing down their necks, they're going to appear to cooperate.
But the Old Gods and the Void Lords offer them something else - a universe of unending darkness. That's something that might be more appealing to pretty dark creatures. And indeed, seeing a Dark Titan Azeroth arise and tear Sargeras apart would probably be really, really cathartic.
The Legion has been historically presented as a uniform entity that is unending and wholly dedicated to its task. But perhaps, as we fight against them in this upcoming expansion, we'll find that there are wheels within wheels here, and the defeat or destruction of Sargeras would mean the beginning of entirely new conflict.
For a long time we suspected the Old Gods might have something to do with the Nightmare, but for some reason the first Satyr Xavius is also associated with it.
World of Warcraft Chronicle cleared up a lot of things, but we are left with a seeming contradiction here.
We now know the root cause of the Emerald Nightmare, and while I didn't intend it, that was kind of a pun. The Night Elves tried to create multiple world trees - there's one in Val'sharah, one in Grizzly Hills, the enormous Teldrassil, and one, obviously, on Mount Hyjal. The latter of these, Nordrassil, served its function, nourished by the waters of the Well of Eternity (in fact it was planted there to sort of regulate the mini-well Illidan created after the Sundering.
Vordrassil, created in Grizzly Hills in Northrend, was planted too close to the prison of Yogg-Saron, and while the Old God was mostly contained within its prison of Ulduar, some of its tendrils were able to reach the roots of Vordrassil and allow corruption to seep into the Emerald Dream, creating the Nightmare as we now know it.
It's not clear if the other Old Gods were able to contribute to the Nightmare. For a long time there seem to have been hints that it was N'Zoth who was behind the dream - or that N'Zoth may actually live at the center of the Nightmare.
These theories seem to be falling apart, though. N'Zoth is probably somewhere beneath the ocean, probably near Vashj'ir (the enormous tentacles corrupting L'ghorek there might actually be N'Zoth's.) Obviously, the Old Gods are so enormous that they span the better part of continents. My theory is that all the twitching bug-structures in Tanaris, Un'goro, Feralas, and of course Silithus are actually parts of C'thun, and clearly anywhere you can find Saronite deposits, Yogg-Saron's anatomy must be somewhere nearby.
Still, Chronicle explicitly stated that the Nightmare is due to the corruption of the Old Gods seeping into the Dream, which is not terribly surprising. Given what we're seeing of the models and creatures within the Emerald Nightmare raid, they're definitely reinforcing this idea. Just in case Ilgynoth didn't look enough like something out of an HP Lovecraft story, there are also faceless ones (also known, according to Chronicle, as N'raqi,) that serve as adds during the fight.
But here's the thing:
Chronicle also tells us that the entire reason Sargeras started the Burning Legion was to destroy the Old Gods and any world that they might corrupt - in other words, all of them. Sargeras is unquestionably evil - for one thing, you'd imagine that the demons would be less sadistic if Sargeras really just wanted to euthanize the universe - but he justifies his actions because it would mean the defeat of the Old Gods and their creators, the Void Lords (beings we haven't even come close to encountering.)
So why is Xavius, a demon, affiliated with the Nightmare? Why does the Legion seem allied with the Nightmare? Or are they?
Here's the thing: The Legion doesn't exactly act in a manner that is true to its mission statement.
According to the official story, the Legion should simply use fel magic - that's fel, not shadow - to burn away every world in the universe. Just send a constant bombardment of Infernals and Abyssals and burn the planet to a crisp, then move on to the next world.
But that's the official story for Sargeras. And while he's evil and suffused with fel magic, Sargeras is not exactly a demon. He's a titan. The demons want things to burn, sure, but that's not the only thing they want.
The whole reason Sargeras turned on the universe is that he found a planet with a proto-Titan World Soul that was in the process of being corrupted by its own local set of Old Gods. What drew him there? Dreadlords, aka Nathrezim.
Nathrezim who were working for the Old Gods.
Demons don't inherently have anything against the Old Gods. They're only fighting them (and not really in a direct way) because Sargeras commanded them to - do it or die permanently. But demons are beings of chaos, and they don't really care what happens as long as they get to bring about mayhem and destruction.
The Legion has plenty of void and shadow magic going on within it - something that Sargeras would be unlikely to condone. Historically we've seen plenty of voidwalkers within their ranks (and we've been able to summon them as Warlocks since vanilla) despite the fact that they're technically not even demons (except for gameplay purposes.) How come?
Well, perhaps the Nathrezim never stopped serving the Old Gods.
Sargeras secured the allegiance of the original members of the Burning Legion through threat and coercion. He essentially said "the whole universe has got to go, but if you serve me you'll be last to die." That's plenty to motivate you to play along, but it also heavily incentivizes you to fail. The Nathrezim would probably prefer to keep on living, but with a freaking Titan breathing down their necks, they're going to appear to cooperate.
But the Old Gods and the Void Lords offer them something else - a universe of unending darkness. That's something that might be more appealing to pretty dark creatures. And indeed, seeing a Dark Titan Azeroth arise and tear Sargeras apart would probably be really, really cathartic.
The Legion has been historically presented as a uniform entity that is unending and wholly dedicated to its task. But perhaps, as we fight against them in this upcoming expansion, we'll find that there are wheels within wheels here, and the defeat or destruction of Sargeras would mean the beginning of entirely new conflict.
Friday, August 19, 2016
Emerald Nightmare to Open Three Weeks After Launch
Blizzard is continuing their philosophy of having the expansion's first raid launch a few weeks after the expansion begins - they want people to be able to take their time leveling up, running heroics and world quests and the like. Just as Highmaul didn't come out until three weeks after Warlords launched, so too will the Emerald Nightmare take a little while before it opens up.
And kind of appropriately, it will launch on September 21st, the first day of Autumn (or sometimes it's the 22nd, but I think that's only leap years.)
Blizzard has said that they want to pace things better this time around. There was a reasonable gap between Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry, but I believe they're going to be pushing it to be a little longer this time so that they don't get ahead of themselves.
We also know that 7.1 is going to be bringing a small raid to Stormheim (whose name is likely TBD,) and this might actually launch before the official centerpiece of tier 19, the Nighthold, launches.
So I definitely would not expect to see the Nighthold come out until next year, possibly even in the spring. But we'll have seven bosses of Emerald Nightmare to tide us over, and with the strong implication that Legion will have at least three raid tiers, I think that that pacing is fine.
If we get Emerald Nightmare in September, go let's say four months before Nighthold (with the Stormheim raid dropping somewhere in the middle there,) that would mean a January release for Nighthold. Then, as it's a bigger raid, give it five or six months, meaning that tier 20 would fall somewhere in May or June (ideally.)
Obviously we won't really know how it all turns out until it happens, but I'm hoping that with a commitment to actually sticking with Legion and filling it out as an expansion, we might see plenty of smallish raids like Emerald Nightmare to bridge the gaps between the bigger "tier" raids.
With Legion conceived as a longer expansion, I really want to know how many raid tiers we'll see. The average has always been three - with Wrath's 4 and Warlords' 2 balancing each other out. But I could imagine Blizzard expanding the... expansion by adding more of these Highmaul/Emerald Nightmare/Mogu'shan Vaults-style "half-tier" raids, keeping item levels from getting utterly out of hand (though in all honesty I kind of enjoyed that by the end of Wrath my characters had stuff like over 50% crit chance.)
I'm feeling pretty optimistic about Legion in a way I definitely did not feel about Warlords. Here's hoping I'm right! (It is an even-numbered expansion, which bodes well.)
And kind of appropriately, it will launch on September 21st, the first day of Autumn (or sometimes it's the 22nd, but I think that's only leap years.)
Blizzard has said that they want to pace things better this time around. There was a reasonable gap between Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry, but I believe they're going to be pushing it to be a little longer this time so that they don't get ahead of themselves.
We also know that 7.1 is going to be bringing a small raid to Stormheim (whose name is likely TBD,) and this might actually launch before the official centerpiece of tier 19, the Nighthold, launches.
So I definitely would not expect to see the Nighthold come out until next year, possibly even in the spring. But we'll have seven bosses of Emerald Nightmare to tide us over, and with the strong implication that Legion will have at least three raid tiers, I think that that pacing is fine.
If we get Emerald Nightmare in September, go let's say four months before Nighthold (with the Stormheim raid dropping somewhere in the middle there,) that would mean a January release for Nighthold. Then, as it's a bigger raid, give it five or six months, meaning that tier 20 would fall somewhere in May or June (ideally.)
Obviously we won't really know how it all turns out until it happens, but I'm hoping that with a commitment to actually sticking with Legion and filling it out as an expansion, we might see plenty of smallish raids like Emerald Nightmare to bridge the gaps between the bigger "tier" raids.
With Legion conceived as a longer expansion, I really want to know how many raid tiers we'll see. The average has always been three - with Wrath's 4 and Warlords' 2 balancing each other out. But I could imagine Blizzard expanding the... expansion by adding more of these Highmaul/Emerald Nightmare/Mogu'shan Vaults-style "half-tier" raids, keeping item levels from getting utterly out of hand (though in all honesty I kind of enjoyed that by the end of Wrath my characters had stuff like over 50% crit chance.)
I'm feeling pretty optimistic about Legion in a way I definitely did not feel about Warlords. Here's hoping I'm right! (It is an even-numbered expansion, which bodes well.)
Thursday, August 18, 2016
A Hope for Pacing in Legion
The announcement of patch 7.1 before Legion has even launched is a cause for much excitement. Not only is the centerpiece of the patch a return to one of WoW's most beloved instances (in a way that does not get rid of the old version of said instance,) but it also implies that Blizzard has planed out this expansion to have pacing similar to what we saw in Mists of Pandaria, where there was always something to look forward to (well, until Siege of Orgrimmar went on for fourteen months.)
Warlords of Draenor's biggest failing, in my opinion (and I think most peoples') was that there was so little to it. Given that 6.1 was a nonentity, the expansion really only had one major content patch in 6.2's Fury of Hellfire. 6.2 added a decent amount of content (though the naval missions left much to be desired) but as the sole content patch after Warlords' launch, it was pretty damn disappointing. One of the apparent causes of that was that Warlords was intended to last only a year. Blizzard had been talking for a long time about getting expansions out at a faster pace, but thankfully Warlords taught them that A: even if they try to do that, they won't be able to and B: a "faster expansion" means about half as much content, at which point your sort of wonder what the point of releasing the expansions faster is (other than the price of the expansion itself - but WoW has always made way more of its money through subscriptions, and so it behooves them more to make sure people want to stay subscribed consistently rather than shelling out frequently for expansions - and players certainly would prefer it that way as well.)
Now, does that mean we won't have a content drought after Legion's final raid arrives? That's what they claim, but I've also been to this rodeo many times and I remember that even Wrath went for roughly nine or ten months with nothing new (except the Ruby Sanctum.) At some point, the WoW team needs to switch from patch development to the next expansion, and that's always going to take more time to complete.
That said, you could imagine an alternate history where Mists of Pandaria spread its patches out a little farther. If they had taken one extra month between patches (and they were pretty fast-paced, so I don't think it would have harmed them too much to do so,) the Siege of Orgrimmar span would have been reduced by four months - still a bit long at ten months, but clearly not as bad.
Blizzard has stated that they intend Legion to be a longer expansion than previous ones - a complete reversal of the disastrous "faster expansions" strategy. Whether that means it's intended to go on for two years, like all expansions have wound up being in practice, or if they want to have it last even longer is anyone's guess.
Personally, my hope is that we're going to see more than three raid tiers. The only expansion to ever do this was Wrath (and to be fair, tier 9 was kind of a mini-tier.) They've also made it clear that they will be adding more dungeon content as the expansion goes on - Karazhan's new version will be the first post-expansion-launch dungeon since the end of Cataclysm.
There are also plenty of reasons we might want to stick around in this expansion - the class order halls and artifact weapons both seem very expandable. I have to imagine there will be a lot of new artifact appearances as the patches roll out. Plus, given that we're fighting arguably the most important villain in the Warcraft universe, it ought to feel epic, and doing a slow build really helps with that.
So even if I'm eager to get some hypothetical Old God underground expansion (I've been DMing my first D&D game and I'm really eager to get the players back into my setting's equivalent of the Underdark,) I think it could be great for the game to have a massive expansion with tons of patches spreading out over a long period of time. Hopefully that's what Legion will be (and with Demon Hunters in the game now, I'm less eager to rush to the next expansion for a new race or class.)
Warlords of Draenor's biggest failing, in my opinion (and I think most peoples') was that there was so little to it. Given that 6.1 was a nonentity, the expansion really only had one major content patch in 6.2's Fury of Hellfire. 6.2 added a decent amount of content (though the naval missions left much to be desired) but as the sole content patch after Warlords' launch, it was pretty damn disappointing. One of the apparent causes of that was that Warlords was intended to last only a year. Blizzard had been talking for a long time about getting expansions out at a faster pace, but thankfully Warlords taught them that A: even if they try to do that, they won't be able to and B: a "faster expansion" means about half as much content, at which point your sort of wonder what the point of releasing the expansions faster is (other than the price of the expansion itself - but WoW has always made way more of its money through subscriptions, and so it behooves them more to make sure people want to stay subscribed consistently rather than shelling out frequently for expansions - and players certainly would prefer it that way as well.)
Now, does that mean we won't have a content drought after Legion's final raid arrives? That's what they claim, but I've also been to this rodeo many times and I remember that even Wrath went for roughly nine or ten months with nothing new (except the Ruby Sanctum.) At some point, the WoW team needs to switch from patch development to the next expansion, and that's always going to take more time to complete.
That said, you could imagine an alternate history where Mists of Pandaria spread its patches out a little farther. If they had taken one extra month between patches (and they were pretty fast-paced, so I don't think it would have harmed them too much to do so,) the Siege of Orgrimmar span would have been reduced by four months - still a bit long at ten months, but clearly not as bad.
Blizzard has stated that they intend Legion to be a longer expansion than previous ones - a complete reversal of the disastrous "faster expansions" strategy. Whether that means it's intended to go on for two years, like all expansions have wound up being in practice, or if they want to have it last even longer is anyone's guess.
Personally, my hope is that we're going to see more than three raid tiers. The only expansion to ever do this was Wrath (and to be fair, tier 9 was kind of a mini-tier.) They've also made it clear that they will be adding more dungeon content as the expansion goes on - Karazhan's new version will be the first post-expansion-launch dungeon since the end of Cataclysm.
There are also plenty of reasons we might want to stick around in this expansion - the class order halls and artifact weapons both seem very expandable. I have to imagine there will be a lot of new artifact appearances as the patches roll out. Plus, given that we're fighting arguably the most important villain in the Warcraft universe, it ought to feel epic, and doing a slow build really helps with that.
So even if I'm eager to get some hypothetical Old God underground expansion (I've been DMing my first D&D game and I'm really eager to get the players back into my setting's equivalent of the Underdark,) I think it could be great for the game to have a massive expansion with tons of patches spreading out over a long period of time. Hopefully that's what Legion will be (and with Demon Hunters in the game now, I'm less eager to rush to the next expansion for a new race or class.)
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