The reason we're getting so many new races this expansion is that each is really a variant of an existing race. Had we only gotten, say, Kul Tiran Humans (which, based on my use of the glyph on pickpocketing that gives you a disguise based on who you pickpocketed, look like they'll just be referred to as "Kul Tiran" for their race) and Zandalari Trolls, some very well might have complained that these were too similar to existing races to be as big of an expansion feature as Draenei and Blood Elves or Worgen and Goblins had been (and Pandaren, though they were the only race released with Mists, also came with a whole class.)
And besides, people have been asking for Dark Iron Dwarves, Mag'har Orcs, and High Elves for ages, and, well, 2/3 ain't bad! (Personally, though they came out of nowhere, I actually really like the Void Elves, and I think they're an interesting jumping off point to explore what the Void really is.) So by introducing all these races en masse, it feels like a significant-enough feature to match something like brand-new races (and with their own racial traits, in a mechanical sense, these are entirely new races.)
Naturally, as someone who has a sentimental attachment toward my 12-year-old characters as well as a reluctance to shell out $25 for race changes, most of these new races are going to wind up being for secondary alts.
But thinking about the races themselves, there's an interesting theme.
All of the Alliance allied races that are currently out are imbued with a sort of inherent magic to them.
The Lightforged Draenei are saturated with the magic of the light - my favorite blue aliens in this case aren't even blue anymore. The Draenei have historically been devout worshippers of the Light, but these people have it as a part of their essence. What does that do for their free will? And will there be an expectation that the Draenei should all undergo the Lightforging process? Velen seems to have become disillusioned with the moral absolutism of the Naaru after what happened between Xe'ra (I can never remember where the apostrophe goes) and Illidan, and while I think his connection to the Light is still strong, I do think he would balk at such a radical action, at least for himself.
The Void Elves have, of course, imbued themselves with the opposite force. There's a ton of stuff that the Void Elves represent politically when it comes to Quel'thalas, but while the Light has for most of WoW been seen as a largely (if not with perfect consistency) good force, the Void has, until recently, always been seen as pure evil - Shadow Priests sort of find themselves in the context of Warlocks, Death Knights, and Demon Hunters as the "using evil to fight evil" category. Fun story: my Priest character (who is a Shadow Priest) is a Blood Elf. It's not clear to me what the Void Elves have done that got them exiled and transformed them physically that this guy hasn't. I like to think that he's just a hypocrite about it. But for the Void Elves, what is everyday life like for them? They've made a home for themselves on the ruins of the planet that Sargeras sliced in half (RIP the Titan Telongrus,) but what insight will they provide the Alliance with when it comes to this volatile and hazardous force?
Then we've got the Dark Iron Dwarves. I'm making an assumption here, but I would imagine that, prior to when Emperor Thaurissan summoned Ragnaros to the Molten Core, the Dark Irons presumably looked a lot more like other dwarves. If you compare the Bronzebeard and Wildhammer Clans, the only real visual difference is the Wildhammers' facial tattoos. But Dark Irons have grey skin, burning hair, and literal fire in their eyes. So I'd guess that Ragnaros transformed them, and that Dark Irons are literally imbued with elemental fire. To be fair, this is one of the better-understood magical forces, but nevertheless, the Alliance can now add "Fire Dwarves" to their roster. (In D&D, the "evil dwarf" variant, the Duergar, are also grey-skinned and more subterranean than their dwarven brethren, but their personalities are practically opposite from the Dark Irons. Duergar are passionless and kind of emotionally empty, fueled only by a kind of compulsive greed, whereas Dark Irons seem to be defined by a kind of emotional overload of fury, debauchery, and anger - which again, makes sense if they're imbued with fire.)
Now, the Kul Tirans, who we expect to be out in 8.1 or some other patch, seem to be the exception here. Other than being a lot burlier than their Stormwind brethren, and having a bit of a different culture (they get Druids. I'm still pissed that Worgen didn't get Paladins, and though we haven't seen Kul Tiran paladins among the NPCs, I feel like there's no reason they shouldn't, as proud members of the Alliance in the Second War.) But yeah, Kul Tirans seem largely to be just other humans, and of course a lot of Kul Tiran NPCs just use the standard human model, so it's more of an opportunity for a different body type.
Now, Horde-side, there's also a fair bit of magic-infusion.
The Nightborne are, of course, as infused with Arcane magic as the Lightforged are with Light and the Void Elves with Void. They've spent ten thousand years feeding off nothing but the arcane. While they are weening themselves off the Nightwell (as it dissipates,) it's not clear if the change is reversible. They of course have a lot in common with the Blood Elves (and thus the Void Elves too, actually,) but the magical addiction the Blood Elves have dealt with was born more out of excess, whereas the Nightborne had nothing else to sustain them for a very long time.
The Highmountain Tauren are also imbued with magic, but it's a subtler and probably less intense saturation. Huln was blessed by Cenarius and given his antlers - the Horns of Eche'ro - as a sign of the demigod's favor. The Highmountain have carried that sign for ten thousand years (man, culture is way more resilient in Azeroth. Name one famous person from ten thousand years ago on earth - though I guess it helps when you have a lot of races that basically don't age.) But I would argue that the Highmountain do carry some intense nature magic within them, even if it isn't as much as the previously mentioned races with their various schools. (Kul Tirans excepted.) We do know that the Tauren were transformed from the Yaungol in a similar way that the Night Elves (who were probably just known as "Elves" back then) were transformed by the Well of Eternity, meaning that technically, the Tauren are actually already a little on the Arcane side (ironic, given their inability to be Mages.)
The Mag'har, of course, are sort of defined by their lack of magical saturation. Granted, the visual similarities between the Blackrock Orcs and the Dark Iron Dwarves makes me wonder if the Blackrock are similarly imbued with elemental fire. The difference being that the Elements of Draenor are actually a lot more explicitly benevolent. Our universe's standard orcs carry Fel taint with them, but the Mag'har (both of Draenor B and the small number from Outland like Garrosh) are only as magical as being the long-since evolved versions of a giant created by Aggramar (which seemed to be not so much a Titanforged creation as a kind of massive elemental.) But that's a distant enough evolution that I'd say the Orcs are just people, and the Mag'har in particular are free of magical definition. Notably, in the Mag'har unlock quests (I have yet to do them - my one Horde 120 isn't even revered with Honorbound yet,) we find that the Draenei have been effectively Lightforging some Orcs, though given the Draenei are zealously trying to convert everyone to the Light (though there's wiggle room on whether the Draenei have truly become insane zealots or if that's just the opinion of the Mag'har,) they see these "Lightbound" as corrupted in a similar way to the Fel-crazed orcs who worked for the Legion.
Finally, we come to the Zandalari. On one hand, it's not entirely explicit, but the fact that these guys have glowing eyes is, I think, noteworthy (then again, standard Draenei do too.) It's clear that the Zandalari have a much closer relationship with the Loa than other Trolls - indeed, Zandalar is kind of the Troll equivalent of Mount Hyjal. But is this the same level of magical infusion that we're seeing with the other allied races? I don't really know. Rastakhan himself is clearly pumped full of Loa juice - first Rezan kept him alive for 200 years (Trolls typically live about the same amount of time as humans, I believe) and now Bwonsamdi has given him some equivalent blessing. Still, I think that if there is any magic running through their veins, it's probably more on the level with the Highmountain Tauren than, say, the Void Elves.
If we compare this with the existing races, I think that you'll see we've got a lot more magic here than previously. Obviously the Undead are sustained entirely through necromancy magic. The Blood Elves have a subtle Fel taint (though the golden eyes now available suggest that this might be getting replaced with the Sunwell's new Holy magic.) Likewise, as previously mentioned, Orcs have a bit of Fel with them still. I'd argue that the Worgen are probably the most suffused with Life magic, given the way that Goldrinn's essence is in inescapable part of them.
So that means we have Life, Light, Fel, Death, Void, and Arcane all represented in different playable races, which actually covers the 6 primal forces in the Warcraft universe.
Friday, September 7, 2018
Thursday, September 6, 2018
By the Fires o' Ragnaros!
Well, after a marathon session clearing every world quest in Zandalar, I... was still about 270 reputation short of exalted with 7th Legion. So this morning I took a look at the new world quests, finished a couple, and then promptly returned to Stormwind to get my Dark Iron Dwarves unlocked.
The quests for Dark Irons is actually a bit more involved than I recall the ones for the pre-BFA allied races being.
The Dark Irons are sort of odd, in that they've been a part of Ironforge's population since Cataclysm, when Moira returned and demanded that her adopted people be allowed to return to the heart of Dwarvish culture. But while the Dark Irons have spent plenty of time as sort of unofficial members of the Alliance, with this quest chain you make it official.
You begin by being invited to Blackrock Depths where the Dark Irons are working on forging azerite. However, while you're there, a group of Venture Company goblins show up to raid the place. While you fight them off, you return to the Black Anvil to find that the legendary craftsman's hammer, Ironfoe, has been stolen, and the Venture goons have broken the Black Anvil itself.
In order to fix this central piece of Dark Iron culture, you first need to go chase down those Venture company jerks and take it back, which requires you to run the MOTHERLODE!! dungeon (I did it on Mythic because I still want a shield - no luck on that account - but I think you can run it on normal or heroic for the quest.) You then descend into the Molten Core to retrieve a fragment of the core... sorry a "Fragment O' the Core." From there, you then have to journey to the Firelands and power up the fragment at Ragnaros' seat in Sulfuron Keep, where you encounter some Dark Iron fire cultists who want to somehow revive the Firelord (despite the fact that Shamans established a new Firelord who seems way more friendly than Ragnaros ever was.)
With the core empowered and the leader of the fire cultists, Herald Grimstone, mysteriously vanished, you return to Shadowforge City and use the empowered fragment to mend the Black Anvil.
Having saved one of the Dark Irons' prize possessions, you return to the embassy, where Anduin officially invites Moira to bring the Dark Iron Dwarves in as full members of the Alliance, which she humbly accepts.
And then you get a one-headed Core Hound mount!
Dark Irons look very cool - skin tones are all various shades of grey, and they all have fiery red eyes. Your hair glows at the tips with a kind of burning ember - the Dark Iron colors are very distinctly red, black, and grey. You can also get facial tattoos, including a full-on Imperator Furiosa (and I'm sure we're going to see a lot of female Dark Irons with name variants on her.)
I had initially thought to make a Mage, but I chose instead to go with a Warlock. At lower levels I've had him as Demonology for some early-access AoE for dungeon grinding, but my intention is to make him primarily a Destruction Lock - this is one Warlock where I actually might think his spells look more appropriate without green fire. In only about an hour and a half of play, I've gotten him to 26, meaning he has Rain of Fire, so I might just have him stick with Destruction for the rest of his leveling.
While the pre-BFA allied races requires you to get to 110 for heritage sets, it appears that the new ones all require 120, so it'll be a while before I get his blocky Dark Iron plate-like armor (part of my motivation for choosing a cloth class was the incongruity of having a squishy clothy look like he's clad in plate.)
Probably the most notable Dark Iron racial ability is the Mole Machine, which has a 30 minute cooldown and lets you transport to various important locations. By default, you'll have Ironforge, Stormwind, and Blackrock Depths (the little starting area like Telogrus Rift for Void Elves, not the middle of a hostile dungeon.) There are apparently Mole Machines you can find all over the world, and these will get added to the list of places you can teleport to.
The quests for Dark Irons is actually a bit more involved than I recall the ones for the pre-BFA allied races being.
The Dark Irons are sort of odd, in that they've been a part of Ironforge's population since Cataclysm, when Moira returned and demanded that her adopted people be allowed to return to the heart of Dwarvish culture. But while the Dark Irons have spent plenty of time as sort of unofficial members of the Alliance, with this quest chain you make it official.
You begin by being invited to Blackrock Depths where the Dark Irons are working on forging azerite. However, while you're there, a group of Venture Company goblins show up to raid the place. While you fight them off, you return to the Black Anvil to find that the legendary craftsman's hammer, Ironfoe, has been stolen, and the Venture goons have broken the Black Anvil itself.
In order to fix this central piece of Dark Iron culture, you first need to go chase down those Venture company jerks and take it back, which requires you to run the MOTHERLODE!! dungeon (I did it on Mythic because I still want a shield - no luck on that account - but I think you can run it on normal or heroic for the quest.) You then descend into the Molten Core to retrieve a fragment of the core... sorry a "Fragment O' the Core." From there, you then have to journey to the Firelands and power up the fragment at Ragnaros' seat in Sulfuron Keep, where you encounter some Dark Iron fire cultists who want to somehow revive the Firelord (despite the fact that Shamans established a new Firelord who seems way more friendly than Ragnaros ever was.)
With the core empowered and the leader of the fire cultists, Herald Grimstone, mysteriously vanished, you return to Shadowforge City and use the empowered fragment to mend the Black Anvil.
Having saved one of the Dark Irons' prize possessions, you return to the embassy, where Anduin officially invites Moira to bring the Dark Iron Dwarves in as full members of the Alliance, which she humbly accepts.
And then you get a one-headed Core Hound mount!
Dark Irons look very cool - skin tones are all various shades of grey, and they all have fiery red eyes. Your hair glows at the tips with a kind of burning ember - the Dark Iron colors are very distinctly red, black, and grey. You can also get facial tattoos, including a full-on Imperator Furiosa (and I'm sure we're going to see a lot of female Dark Irons with name variants on her.)
I had initially thought to make a Mage, but I chose instead to go with a Warlock. At lower levels I've had him as Demonology for some early-access AoE for dungeon grinding, but my intention is to make him primarily a Destruction Lock - this is one Warlock where I actually might think his spells look more appropriate without green fire. In only about an hour and a half of play, I've gotten him to 26, meaning he has Rain of Fire, so I might just have him stick with Destruction for the rest of his leveling.
While the pre-BFA allied races requires you to get to 110 for heritage sets, it appears that the new ones all require 120, so it'll be a while before I get his blocky Dark Iron plate-like armor (part of my motivation for choosing a cloth class was the incongruity of having a squishy clothy look like he's clad in plate.)
Probably the most notable Dark Iron racial ability is the Mole Machine, which has a 30 minute cooldown and lets you transport to various important locations. By default, you'll have Ironforge, Stormwind, and Blackrock Depths (the little starting area like Telogrus Rift for Void Elves, not the middle of a hostile dungeon.) There are apparently Mole Machines you can find all over the world, and these will get added to the list of places you can teleport to.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Forsaken Identity is Built on a Lie
My favorite Horde race and possibly my favorite race in the whole game (despite being more and more committed to the Alliance over the years) is the Undead. My mom used to be head of our local "Area Council," which organized events in our neighborhood, such as Village Day at the beginning of the summer (right around my birthday, usually) when local restaurants and merchants would set up booths in the street and everyone would come out to enjoy the festivities. She also ran the annual Halloween party in the gym of an elementary school that closed in the '80s and had become our local community center.
Anyway, I have loved Halloween since I was a little kid, and who is more Halloween-y than the Undead? (The Worgen might have them tied.)
When WoW started, the Undead were sort of the odd men out in the Horde. While Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren were all tied together by a shamanistic culture (one that, at least in those days, Thrall was trying to emphasize over the more brutal warrior culture that had previously defined the Horde - it didn't seem to last,) the Undead were explicitly there as an alliance of convenience - indeed, Western Horde characters got a slight boost to reputation with their fellow Kalimdor-based home cities, but started out Neutral with Undercity, and vice versa.
As an undead player, the story you got was one of being caught between a rock and a hard place - on one side, you had the Scourge - every worst thing you could imagine about a ravenous undead blight, its footsoldiers (whom you were doomed to join if you fell to them) were mindless zombies, but the leadership was cunning and cruel. As one of the free-willed Undead now called Forsaken, you had managed to escape that zombie-like fate by pure dumb luck, but your home was in ruins and under constant siege by this menace.
Meanwhile, on the other hand, you had the Scarlet Crusade, a fundamentalist sect of zealots who were dedicated to eradicating all undead - whether they be mindless Scourge or people like you, namely an ordinary person who just happened to have a horrific affliction.
Now, I don't mean to make the Forsaken of the pre-Cataclysm world out to be totally good guys - they were already testing their plague on living prisoners and fighting to wipe out human towns in order to expand their territory.
Why, though? Why did these former humans turn on their own kind?
We're told in Chronicle that in the early days of the Forsaken, they sent emissaries south to other human lands like Stormwind to try to secure their place back in the Alliance. After all, most Forsaken were former citizens of Lordaeron. If they could get recognized by the Alliance as such, they'd have formidable allies in the fight against the Scourge, many of whom were old friends and even family.
But those emissaries never made it.
Now, we're never told what happened to them. Chronicle leaves that vague. But it's clear that the Forsaken concluded that the emissaries were killed because they looked like Scourge, and the Forsaken then oriented their behavior in a purely antagonistic direction toward humanity.
If there's one uniting ethos to the Forsaken, it's the idea that the Alliance will never accept them for who they are, and that has given them the justification to commit acts of horrific barbarism. While I think most members of the Horde would settle for the Alliance submitting to them, the eventual Forsaken gameplan is to kill all humans and raise them as undead. They believe the only way to see eye-to-eye with humanity is for all of them to be undead.
And to be clear: there are certainly exceptions, and I imagine you might think your Undead character has a different attitude. My Rogue certainly does, thinking that it would be a lot easier if he could work for both sides, doubling his potential customers. But Sylvanas has certainly taken this attitude when it comes to humanity, and many Forsaken follow her without question.
But the thing about this attitude is that it's demonstrably wrong.
Not only have we had figures like Alonsus Faol or Leonid Bartholomew who have been not only welcomed back among humans but actually given important positions in Light-based organizations, but we also saw that average Alliance citizens were willing to reach out to and embrace their undead family members at the peace summit in Arathi Highlands in Before the Storm.
Many of these Forsaken decided to try to return home with their living family, making their way to Stromgarde. It wasn't the Alliance that stepped in and stopped them - it was Sylvanas who ordered them shot.
See, here's the problem: Sylvanas' entire claim to authority over the former citizens of Lordaeron is based on the idea that she shares more with them than the living do. She might be a foreigner form Quel'thalas, but she has gone through the same curse of undeath and rebirth of free will that the rest of the Forsaken have experienced.
The Desolate Council never intentionally threatened her authority, but the implication of what they demonstrated - that the Forsaken and living humans could, in fact, get along - undercut the entire narrative that she built her empire on.
For those loyal to Sylvanas and her vision of the Forsaken gradually replacing humanity, the possibility of peace with the living could undo that entire ethos. The very identity of the Forsaken would be called into question, and their status as members of the Horde and certainly as loyal subjects to the Banshee Queen could easily dissolve in a matter of days.
So it behooves Sylvanas to maintain the narrative at all costs. Dissenters have to be silenced and any prospect of peace needs to be sabotaged. As she sees it, this is the only way to maintain her position and save herself and her people from the oblivion she fears.
It all requires the strict adherence to a vicious lie.
Anyway, I have loved Halloween since I was a little kid, and who is more Halloween-y than the Undead? (The Worgen might have them tied.)
When WoW started, the Undead were sort of the odd men out in the Horde. While Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren were all tied together by a shamanistic culture (one that, at least in those days, Thrall was trying to emphasize over the more brutal warrior culture that had previously defined the Horde - it didn't seem to last,) the Undead were explicitly there as an alliance of convenience - indeed, Western Horde characters got a slight boost to reputation with their fellow Kalimdor-based home cities, but started out Neutral with Undercity, and vice versa.
As an undead player, the story you got was one of being caught between a rock and a hard place - on one side, you had the Scourge - every worst thing you could imagine about a ravenous undead blight, its footsoldiers (whom you were doomed to join if you fell to them) were mindless zombies, but the leadership was cunning and cruel. As one of the free-willed Undead now called Forsaken, you had managed to escape that zombie-like fate by pure dumb luck, but your home was in ruins and under constant siege by this menace.
Meanwhile, on the other hand, you had the Scarlet Crusade, a fundamentalist sect of zealots who were dedicated to eradicating all undead - whether they be mindless Scourge or people like you, namely an ordinary person who just happened to have a horrific affliction.
Now, I don't mean to make the Forsaken of the pre-Cataclysm world out to be totally good guys - they were already testing their plague on living prisoners and fighting to wipe out human towns in order to expand their territory.
Why, though? Why did these former humans turn on their own kind?
We're told in Chronicle that in the early days of the Forsaken, they sent emissaries south to other human lands like Stormwind to try to secure their place back in the Alliance. After all, most Forsaken were former citizens of Lordaeron. If they could get recognized by the Alliance as such, they'd have formidable allies in the fight against the Scourge, many of whom were old friends and even family.
But those emissaries never made it.
Now, we're never told what happened to them. Chronicle leaves that vague. But it's clear that the Forsaken concluded that the emissaries were killed because they looked like Scourge, and the Forsaken then oriented their behavior in a purely antagonistic direction toward humanity.
If there's one uniting ethos to the Forsaken, it's the idea that the Alliance will never accept them for who they are, and that has given them the justification to commit acts of horrific barbarism. While I think most members of the Horde would settle for the Alliance submitting to them, the eventual Forsaken gameplan is to kill all humans and raise them as undead. They believe the only way to see eye-to-eye with humanity is for all of them to be undead.
And to be clear: there are certainly exceptions, and I imagine you might think your Undead character has a different attitude. My Rogue certainly does, thinking that it would be a lot easier if he could work for both sides, doubling his potential customers. But Sylvanas has certainly taken this attitude when it comes to humanity, and many Forsaken follow her without question.
But the thing about this attitude is that it's demonstrably wrong.
Not only have we had figures like Alonsus Faol or Leonid Bartholomew who have been not only welcomed back among humans but actually given important positions in Light-based organizations, but we also saw that average Alliance citizens were willing to reach out to and embrace their undead family members at the peace summit in Arathi Highlands in Before the Storm.
Many of these Forsaken decided to try to return home with their living family, making their way to Stromgarde. It wasn't the Alliance that stepped in and stopped them - it was Sylvanas who ordered them shot.
See, here's the problem: Sylvanas' entire claim to authority over the former citizens of Lordaeron is based on the idea that she shares more with them than the living do. She might be a foreigner form Quel'thalas, but she has gone through the same curse of undeath and rebirth of free will that the rest of the Forsaken have experienced.
The Desolate Council never intentionally threatened her authority, but the implication of what they demonstrated - that the Forsaken and living humans could, in fact, get along - undercut the entire narrative that she built her empire on.
For those loyal to Sylvanas and her vision of the Forsaken gradually replacing humanity, the possibility of peace with the living could undo that entire ethos. The very identity of the Forsaken would be called into question, and their status as members of the Horde and certainly as loyal subjects to the Banshee Queen could easily dissolve in a matter of days.
So it behooves Sylvanas to maintain the narrative at all costs. Dissenters have to be silenced and any prospect of peace needs to be sabotaged. As she sees it, this is the only way to maintain her position and save herself and her people from the oblivion she fears.
It all requires the strict adherence to a vicious lie.
What Monsters I Want to See in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica
We're still a bit over two months out from the release of Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. As a sourcebook like Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide or the digital Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron, I mainly expected GGtR to be background on the world, a few new races and class options, and that'd be it. Apparently, while it will include a bunch of those, it will also apparently have a ton of monsters - one interview said that it would have approximately as many as Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, which, you know, is basically Monster Manual 3 for fifth edition.
Now, I played Magic long, long before I ever played D&D, and so there are some creatures that I'm familiar with that I would love to see in a D&D context.
Not all creatures from Magic show up in all sets - there's very little to do with Phyrexia in Ravnica, for example - but there are a lot of interesting elements that I hope to see touched on in GGtR.
Thrulls:
Thrulls were introduced in Fallen Empires, a booster pack of which was the very first Magic product I got. These creatures are unholy amalgamations of dead flesh that has been reconstituted into a living creature that is bred specifically to be sacrificed.
In Ravnica, the Orzhov Syndicate serves as the plane's church, but is a thinly-veiled mafia-like organization that bleeds money from the citizenry in order to enrich themselves. Members of the Orzhov are often granted a second life of sorts as a ghost after their death - the leaders of the Orzhov are an oligarchical council of ghosts - but the physical remains of its people are often transformed into Thrulls that serve as messengers, servants, and enforcers for the Syndicate.
Back in Fallen Empires, set on a different plane, Thrulls actually rebelled against the dark cult that created them, and so I could certainly imagine a story hook in which the party is contacted by an Orzhov priest whose Thrulls have gone feral.
Vampire variants:
Ravnica is meant to have a quasi-central/eastern European vibe to it (it's kind of Prague-like,) and so vampires play a rather large role in the setting. House Dimir, the clandestine illuminati-like organization that has eyes and ears everywhere and likes to control information, was founded by a vampire named Szadek. While Szadek seems to have a largely humanoid appearance, there are other creatures like the Moroii who look far more alien. And vampires of the Dimir guild often feed not on blood, but on thoughts, so having some kind of psychic vampires would make a lot of sense in this setting.
Weirds:
We have the Water Weird in the Monster Manual, but pushing for greater diversity among elementals in Ravnica would seem like a good call - especially due to the reckless experimentation of the Izzet League. Weirds might kind of straddle the line between Elemental and Aberration (though less of the Lovecraftian variety and more of the experiment-gone-wrong type.)
Horrors:
There are a lot of nasty things that stalk the undercity - whether they be mind-sucking creatures employed by the Dimir, insectoid garbage-processors used by the Golgari Swarm, or even the bizarre Nephilim.
Lots of New Humanoids:
Ravnica is bringing in a lot of new playable races, like Minotaurs, Centaurs, Vedalken, Simic Hybrids, and Viashino. It would make sense to have some pre-fab NPC statblocks worked out for these.
Now, I played Magic long, long before I ever played D&D, and so there are some creatures that I'm familiar with that I would love to see in a D&D context.
Not all creatures from Magic show up in all sets - there's very little to do with Phyrexia in Ravnica, for example - but there are a lot of interesting elements that I hope to see touched on in GGtR.
Thrulls:
Thrulls were introduced in Fallen Empires, a booster pack of which was the very first Magic product I got. These creatures are unholy amalgamations of dead flesh that has been reconstituted into a living creature that is bred specifically to be sacrificed.
In Ravnica, the Orzhov Syndicate serves as the plane's church, but is a thinly-veiled mafia-like organization that bleeds money from the citizenry in order to enrich themselves. Members of the Orzhov are often granted a second life of sorts as a ghost after their death - the leaders of the Orzhov are an oligarchical council of ghosts - but the physical remains of its people are often transformed into Thrulls that serve as messengers, servants, and enforcers for the Syndicate.
Back in Fallen Empires, set on a different plane, Thrulls actually rebelled against the dark cult that created them, and so I could certainly imagine a story hook in which the party is contacted by an Orzhov priest whose Thrulls have gone feral.
Vampire variants:
Ravnica is meant to have a quasi-central/eastern European vibe to it (it's kind of Prague-like,) and so vampires play a rather large role in the setting. House Dimir, the clandestine illuminati-like organization that has eyes and ears everywhere and likes to control information, was founded by a vampire named Szadek. While Szadek seems to have a largely humanoid appearance, there are other creatures like the Moroii who look far more alien. And vampires of the Dimir guild often feed not on blood, but on thoughts, so having some kind of psychic vampires would make a lot of sense in this setting.
Weirds:
We have the Water Weird in the Monster Manual, but pushing for greater diversity among elementals in Ravnica would seem like a good call - especially due to the reckless experimentation of the Izzet League. Weirds might kind of straddle the line between Elemental and Aberration (though less of the Lovecraftian variety and more of the experiment-gone-wrong type.)
Horrors:
There are a lot of nasty things that stalk the undercity - whether they be mind-sucking creatures employed by the Dimir, insectoid garbage-processors used by the Golgari Swarm, or even the bizarre Nephilim.
Lots of New Humanoids:
Ravnica is bringing in a lot of new playable races, like Minotaurs, Centaurs, Vedalken, Simic Hybrids, and Viashino. It would make sense to have some pre-fab NPC statblocks worked out for these.
Warfronts: Hurry Up and Wait
So, on one hand, I think the revamped Arathi Highlands in which the Warfronts take place is gorgeous. The quests there, while simplistic, reward a boat-load of war resources, which is something that the past few weeks of the expansion have kept a bit on the rare side.
But if you're looking for my impressions of Warfronts, you'll have to wait.
While one side controls Arathi Highlands, the other has many turn-in quests that progress them to the point where they can start their battle. Currently, the Alliance controls it, which means the Horde now has a number of resource-gathering daily quests.
I don't know exactly how long this phase is meant to last, but my biggest question is how long the actual battle will be available. The battle itself seems to be the headliner of the feature, of course, and rewards what is, for now, quite impressive gear. I have a quest on my Alliance characters to complete a Warfront, but we will have to wait through every phase of the cycle before we get to actually do that - we need the Horde to gather resources, then to win the battle, then for us to gather resources, and then we'll finally be able to battle.
By necessity, these phases ought to last a while - maybe a week each - so that players can participate in them. What this means, however, is that the Alliance is going to be waiting for nearly a month before they can actually participate in the battle.
And I don't know how long that window will be open.
Time-gating is nothing new with World of Warcraft - it's meant to give players something to do after the initial release of content as well as discouraging players from simply grinding things for several straight days right as new content releases.
So it's possible that over time, we'll get used to this cycle. Still, as one of the major features of BFA, I feel like there could have been a better introduction to the feature.
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.
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Everything Opened Today!
The biggest event today in World of Warcraft was the opening of Uldir, the first raid for the Battle for Azeroth expansion. Normal should be dropping 355 loot while Heroic drops 370. Mythic Uldir launches a week from today, along with the first LFR tier, which will drop 340 loot (perhaps less exciting if you've been doing Mythic dungeons, but still worthwhile unless you're armed to the teeth already. Also, a good way to see the raid if your guild isn't quite there yet. Plus, purple-toned weapons and armor!)
World Bosses are up as well, with the big C'thrax dude in Stormsong Valley, who is relatively easy to get to if you have any sort of water-walking mount. There's a Horde flight point that I think is actually closer to him than the nearest Alliance one. This guy drops 355 gear (I was lucky enough to get the trinket on my Death Knight.)
The other huge thing is that Warfronts are now open, though the actual Warfront itself is not yet, as the Horde is currently in a resource-gathering stage. Much like the Ahn'qiraj war effort from back before even I had started playing (I'm pretty sure Naxxramas-40 had already opened before I made my first character,) you'll be able to turn in various gathered materials from professions in order to speed up the eventual battle for the Horde to take over Arathi Highlands. These net you some Honorbound reputation, which should help in the quest to complete your war campaign and unlock those Mag'har Orcs.
Meanwhile, the Alliance has access to Arathi already, which has a number of quests that reward huge amounts of war resources, as well as a piece of 340 gear and big chunks of Azerite. But the biggest advantage to having control is that you get access to an additional World Boss: Doom's Howl (when Horde controls the place it will be Lion's Roar, but they're clearly mechanically identical and even look similar.) This boss drops 870 gear (and here I was lucky enough to replace an 830 trinket with the 870 one on my Paladin main.)
At the moment, the quests that reward all these resources and the gear appear to be one-per-account, though I suspect this is a bug (my guess is that, like Island expeditions, they only have you do the intro quest once per account, but that they may have accidentally put these quests under the same umbrella.)
Hopefully those quests will be made available to alts, because at about 200 war resources a pop (the world bosses also have world quests associated with them that reward 250,) suddenly the dearrth of war resources no longer seems like such a burden, and I can actually imagine eventually getting those later research goals done.
Oh, and one last thing:
Arathi Highlands, or at least the version of it where the Warfronts take place, looks amazing. They've totally rebuilt it, with modern terrain textures and ambient environmental details. The Witherbark village has some Zandalari assets. The elemental circles are updated. Just the grass and hills and everything looks a lot more detailed and vibrant. It makes me sort of wish they'd do a gradual zone-by-zone clean-up of the Old World and put max-level content there.
World Bosses are up as well, with the big C'thrax dude in Stormsong Valley, who is relatively easy to get to if you have any sort of water-walking mount. There's a Horde flight point that I think is actually closer to him than the nearest Alliance one. This guy drops 355 gear (I was lucky enough to get the trinket on my Death Knight.)
The other huge thing is that Warfronts are now open, though the actual Warfront itself is not yet, as the Horde is currently in a resource-gathering stage. Much like the Ahn'qiraj war effort from back before even I had started playing (I'm pretty sure Naxxramas-40 had already opened before I made my first character,) you'll be able to turn in various gathered materials from professions in order to speed up the eventual battle for the Horde to take over Arathi Highlands. These net you some Honorbound reputation, which should help in the quest to complete your war campaign and unlock those Mag'har Orcs.
Meanwhile, the Alliance has access to Arathi already, which has a number of quests that reward huge amounts of war resources, as well as a piece of 340 gear and big chunks of Azerite. But the biggest advantage to having control is that you get access to an additional World Boss: Doom's Howl (when Horde controls the place it will be Lion's Roar, but they're clearly mechanically identical and even look similar.) This boss drops 870 gear (and here I was lucky enough to replace an 830 trinket with the 870 one on my Paladin main.)
At the moment, the quests that reward all these resources and the gear appear to be one-per-account, though I suspect this is a bug (my guess is that, like Island expeditions, they only have you do the intro quest once per account, but that they may have accidentally put these quests under the same umbrella.)
Hopefully those quests will be made available to alts, because at about 200 war resources a pop (the world bosses also have world quests associated with them that reward 250,) suddenly the dearrth of war resources no longer seems like such a burden, and I can actually imagine eventually getting those later research goals done.
Oh, and one last thing:
Arathi Highlands, or at least the version of it where the Warfronts take place, looks amazing. They've totally rebuilt it, with modern terrain textures and ambient environmental details. The Witherbark village has some Zandalari assets. The elemental circles are updated. Just the grass and hills and everything looks a lot more detailed and vibrant. It makes me sort of wish they'd do a gradual zone-by-zone clean-up of the Old World and put max-level content there.
Kul Tiras Feels More Like Enemy Territory than Zandalar
It's ironic, but the Zandalari Empire has very little territory truly under its control. It still feels imperial thanks to the reverence that the other Troll Empires pay to it - we encounter Farraki, Gurubashi, and Amani trolls who live in their own enclaves within Zuldazar.
But King Rastakhan's influence pretty much ends at the border with Nazmir. Nazmir feels mostly like a deadly wilderness with only ruins to inhabit, because, well, it is. Apparently, lorewise, Nazmir was not too different from Zuldazar before the Cataclysm - the rise of the Blood Trolls and the swampification of what had been more of a serene jungle all happened thanks to Deathwing. Nazmir sank, allowing sea-water to flood into the area and presumably kill a lot of the less resilient plant life. Of course, I'd also assume that Deathwing's destruction helped to weaken the integrity of Uldir, allowing G'huun's influence to spread through not just Zul, but all the blood trolls. Vol'dun has been in a state of devastation for a lot longer, and has served as a kind of Australia-like prison colony where outlaws in Zuldazar are shipped as punishment for their crimes and to protect the law-abiding citizens of the capital. Still, it's shocking that they can even get exiles through Nazmir safely enough for them to die in the desert, and it also by definition puts Vol'dun beyond Rastakhan's reach.
Indeed, neither Vol'dun nor Nazmir really have any permanent strongholds for the Zandalari Empire, at least until we show up.
What's interesting about this is that that makes it feel less like trespassing to come there as an Alliance player. While locations around Zuldazar certainly give a sense that you need to remain clandestine (in fact, the last part of the 8.0 War campaign for the Alliance climaxes in a desperate effort to prevent intelligence of the Xibala camp from getting back to Dazar'alor,) going to Nazmir or Vol'dun doesn't feel all that much different from any other zone we've visited with hostile monsters.
But Kul Tiras is different. Now, clearly, it's got problems that the Alliance player spends their leveling experience resolving. Of the three noble houses that serve the Proudmoores, the only one who is present and available is secretly plotting to overthrow Katherine. Lady Waycrest has become Gorak Tul's puppet in using death magic to take revenge against the Kul Tirans while Lord Stormsong has succumbed to Azshara's void magic and has trapped the legendary Kul Tiran fleet using his Tidesage magic.
But nonetheless, Kul Tiras really does feel like a unified whole - the isolation of various parts of the kingdom feels like a very new thing, and one gets the sense that guard patrols cross the boarders with some regularity. Someone in Fallhaven going to do business in Bridgeport is probably seen as the most natural thing in the world.
And this, I think, contributes to the feeling as a Horde player in Kul Tiras that you are really in enemy territory. Now, part of this I'm sure is that I'm more of an Alliance player (though my main Shaman, Rogue, and Priest are all Horde,) and so I've spent more time in Kul Tiras. But while there's a threat of being discovered by Zandalari patrols and military forces in Zandalar for the Alliance, in Kul Tiras, it seems as if any random traveling merchant or farmer could stumble upon your camps - during the first level-cap quests for the Horde War Campaign, you claim a lodge in the hills of southern Tiragarde Sound that I could very easily imagine stumbling into as a Kul Tiran.
The Horde's biggest base by far in Kul Tiras is Warfang Horde in the northern hills of Stormsong Valley (interestingly, this is where one of the major quest chains for leveling Alliance players comes to a climax, where you actually hijack a goblin mech and torch the base, though it clearly doesn't take.) It's ironic to me that when Horde players arrive here, it's a pre-established base and Rexxar encourages you to reclaim "our lands." The notion that the Horde feels a sense of ownership of this part of Kul Tiras is very strange to me (also the fact that Jaina's return is what got him to fight the Alliance - and you wonder why Jaina has trust issues when it comes to the Horde.)
But that's kind of the weirdness of this expansion (and I don't mean weird in a bad way.) Every expansion after vanilla, barring new races' starting zone, every zone was equally Alliance and Horde territory (except for Warlords' Frostfire Ridge and Shadowmoon Valley, which was kind of a proto-experiment in what Battle for Azeroth has done.)
The truth is that, in fact, all six zones are there for players of both sides. But because of the difference in leveling experience gives each continent a very distinct feel.
On the other hand, given that we're still early enough in the expansion that leveling our characters still feels like a significant chunk of the time we've put into it, perhaps as things go on it will feel less strange. I even wonder if part of the plot of the expansion will see the Blue-ness of Kul Tiras and the Red-ness of Zandalar blur into purple. I haven't finished the 8.0 Horde war campaign yet, but it seems as if both end with major preparations for an attack on the other continent's capital city. I doubt that we'll see the territories truly traded, but I do wonder if more substantial presences will form for each faction in their "opposite" continent.
Still, the experiences don't feel totally parallel. One thing I found really interesting is that, when establishing the first Horde base in Tiragarde Sound, you actually recruit some human pirates to mutiny and make their little port into Horde territory. Are these humans now part of the Horde? And if not, do they know what they've gotten themselves mixed up in? Indeed, would it even be possible for the Horde to allow humans to join it?
One thing I've always kind of wondered is what the Horde sees as the ideal conclusion to their war on the Alliance. The Alliance seems to basically not want their cities destroyed and not have their people killed, and they've generally been ok with leaving the Horde their own territories (they even just packed up and left Orgrimmar after the combined effort to oust Garrosh. I bet the Night Elves in particular wish they'd done more there.)
So an Alliance victory seems to be to end Horde aggression, though given the periodic flare-ups that arise despite efforts at peace, they might feel that the Horde itself as an organization has to go, and that individual deals must be made with the Horde's former constituent members.
But the Horde either doesn't think much about the future or they're totally ok with genocide. Remember that the attack on Teldrassil was step one in a plan Saurfang was devising to destroy Stormwind. But say the Horde secures total victory in a war against the Alliance? What then? After Teldrassil, any Alliance races are going to be very skeptical that they'll receive any mercy if they surrender. Certainly people like Sylvanas would simply consider genocide the price they pay for peace, but I imagine most of the Horde would not want to take it that far.
But that raises the question: what does the Horde actually wish to achieve in this war?
But King Rastakhan's influence pretty much ends at the border with Nazmir. Nazmir feels mostly like a deadly wilderness with only ruins to inhabit, because, well, it is. Apparently, lorewise, Nazmir was not too different from Zuldazar before the Cataclysm - the rise of the Blood Trolls and the swampification of what had been more of a serene jungle all happened thanks to Deathwing. Nazmir sank, allowing sea-water to flood into the area and presumably kill a lot of the less resilient plant life. Of course, I'd also assume that Deathwing's destruction helped to weaken the integrity of Uldir, allowing G'huun's influence to spread through not just Zul, but all the blood trolls. Vol'dun has been in a state of devastation for a lot longer, and has served as a kind of Australia-like prison colony where outlaws in Zuldazar are shipped as punishment for their crimes and to protect the law-abiding citizens of the capital. Still, it's shocking that they can even get exiles through Nazmir safely enough for them to die in the desert, and it also by definition puts Vol'dun beyond Rastakhan's reach.
Indeed, neither Vol'dun nor Nazmir really have any permanent strongholds for the Zandalari Empire, at least until we show up.
What's interesting about this is that that makes it feel less like trespassing to come there as an Alliance player. While locations around Zuldazar certainly give a sense that you need to remain clandestine (in fact, the last part of the 8.0 War campaign for the Alliance climaxes in a desperate effort to prevent intelligence of the Xibala camp from getting back to Dazar'alor,) going to Nazmir or Vol'dun doesn't feel all that much different from any other zone we've visited with hostile monsters.
But Kul Tiras is different. Now, clearly, it's got problems that the Alliance player spends their leveling experience resolving. Of the three noble houses that serve the Proudmoores, the only one who is present and available is secretly plotting to overthrow Katherine. Lady Waycrest has become Gorak Tul's puppet in using death magic to take revenge against the Kul Tirans while Lord Stormsong has succumbed to Azshara's void magic and has trapped the legendary Kul Tiran fleet using his Tidesage magic.
But nonetheless, Kul Tiras really does feel like a unified whole - the isolation of various parts of the kingdom feels like a very new thing, and one gets the sense that guard patrols cross the boarders with some regularity. Someone in Fallhaven going to do business in Bridgeport is probably seen as the most natural thing in the world.
And this, I think, contributes to the feeling as a Horde player in Kul Tiras that you are really in enemy territory. Now, part of this I'm sure is that I'm more of an Alliance player (though my main Shaman, Rogue, and Priest are all Horde,) and so I've spent more time in Kul Tiras. But while there's a threat of being discovered by Zandalari patrols and military forces in Zandalar for the Alliance, in Kul Tiras, it seems as if any random traveling merchant or farmer could stumble upon your camps - during the first level-cap quests for the Horde War Campaign, you claim a lodge in the hills of southern Tiragarde Sound that I could very easily imagine stumbling into as a Kul Tiran.
The Horde's biggest base by far in Kul Tiras is Warfang Horde in the northern hills of Stormsong Valley (interestingly, this is where one of the major quest chains for leveling Alliance players comes to a climax, where you actually hijack a goblin mech and torch the base, though it clearly doesn't take.) It's ironic to me that when Horde players arrive here, it's a pre-established base and Rexxar encourages you to reclaim "our lands." The notion that the Horde feels a sense of ownership of this part of Kul Tiras is very strange to me (also the fact that Jaina's return is what got him to fight the Alliance - and you wonder why Jaina has trust issues when it comes to the Horde.)
But that's kind of the weirdness of this expansion (and I don't mean weird in a bad way.) Every expansion after vanilla, barring new races' starting zone, every zone was equally Alliance and Horde territory (except for Warlords' Frostfire Ridge and Shadowmoon Valley, which was kind of a proto-experiment in what Battle for Azeroth has done.)
The truth is that, in fact, all six zones are there for players of both sides. But because of the difference in leveling experience gives each continent a very distinct feel.
On the other hand, given that we're still early enough in the expansion that leveling our characters still feels like a significant chunk of the time we've put into it, perhaps as things go on it will feel less strange. I even wonder if part of the plot of the expansion will see the Blue-ness of Kul Tiras and the Red-ness of Zandalar blur into purple. I haven't finished the 8.0 Horde war campaign yet, but it seems as if both end with major preparations for an attack on the other continent's capital city. I doubt that we'll see the territories truly traded, but I do wonder if more substantial presences will form for each faction in their "opposite" continent.
Still, the experiences don't feel totally parallel. One thing I found really interesting is that, when establishing the first Horde base in Tiragarde Sound, you actually recruit some human pirates to mutiny and make their little port into Horde territory. Are these humans now part of the Horde? And if not, do they know what they've gotten themselves mixed up in? Indeed, would it even be possible for the Horde to allow humans to join it?
One thing I've always kind of wondered is what the Horde sees as the ideal conclusion to their war on the Alliance. The Alliance seems to basically not want their cities destroyed and not have their people killed, and they've generally been ok with leaving the Horde their own territories (they even just packed up and left Orgrimmar after the combined effort to oust Garrosh. I bet the Night Elves in particular wish they'd done more there.)
So an Alliance victory seems to be to end Horde aggression, though given the periodic flare-ups that arise despite efforts at peace, they might feel that the Horde itself as an organization has to go, and that individual deals must be made with the Horde's former constituent members.
But the Horde either doesn't think much about the future or they're totally ok with genocide. Remember that the attack on Teldrassil was step one in a plan Saurfang was devising to destroy Stormwind. But say the Horde secures total victory in a war against the Alliance? What then? After Teldrassil, any Alliance races are going to be very skeptical that they'll receive any mercy if they surrender. Certainly people like Sylvanas would simply consider genocide the price they pay for peace, but I imagine most of the Horde would not want to take it that far.
But that raises the question: what does the Horde actually wish to achieve in this war?
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