Spurred by good reviews and mentions on the official D&D podcast, Dragon Talk, and finding myself with an unexpected day off, I splurged and bought the Kobold Press' two huge books of monsters for Fifth Edition D&D.
These are the Tome of Beasts and the Creature Codex. Lest you think that either of these focuses primarily on simple animals, rest assured that there is a ton going on. Each of these is, I think, longer than the Monster Manual (which is pretty big) and gives you a ton of variants and new ideas. There are many new Demon Lords and Arch Devils (and the rank-and-file fiends to go along them,) but there are also lots of Fey (and Archfey,) not to mention some Angel variants and other Celestials that fall into less Western-based cultures (though I will say I love that there are some freaky "wheels covered in eyes" style angels, which is something often left out in fantasy angels.)
There is a fair amount that relates to the Kobold Press' Midgard setting, though there are enough parallels with my own homebrew setting that I'm sure I can use nearly all of it. There is a group of creatures called Dark Folk who speak "Umbral," which is the name I came up with as the native language of my version of the Shadowfell, called the Shadowlands (which is a little more like the Dark World from Link to the Past than spooky undead land - there's enough of that on my material plane!)
The massive volume here means I'm sure I'll never run out of new monsters to use (not that I was getting all that close with the official Wizards of the Coast publications.)
The challenge rating balance is pretty good too, as there are a fair number of 10-ish CR creatures that I imagine will work quite well for high level parties as long as they've got some minions.
One creature type I'm glad to see more of here is Aberrations, as my setting has a strong cosmic horror element to it. There are some creatures explicitly created by Lovecraft like Nightgaunts and Mi-Go, and a CR 19 Shoggoth. I've sort of danced around my party really fighting true lovecraftian monsters largely for a lack of options, and now I feel like I've got plenty.
Anyway, I love nerding out while reading these. And I'm sure to have lots of fun discussions with my friend who also DMs.
Monday, October 15, 2018
Saturday, October 13, 2018
How Does Sylvanas Avoid Being Garrosh 2.0?
The notion that the Warchief of the Horde could be an expansion's final boss was shocking when they announced that this was how Mists of Pandaria would end. (Chronicled on this very blog.) But as exciting as it was (primarily for Horde players - Alliance players were sort of forced to look in from the outside,) I think most players would agree that it's not something we want to happen again, at least not for a long time.
The main reason is that it's simply repetitive, though I think another factor is that Alliance players don't want to be roped into another internal conflict within the Horde. Horde players might also feel chagrined about the idea that they've got to pingpong between undying loyalty to a monstrous tyrant and being an honorable freedom fighter. Maybe it's the Alliance's turn to be conflicted internally?
And yet the actions we've seen Sylvanas take as Warchief have been seeming to take us down a very similar path that we walked with Garrosh. There are even equivalent characters playing similar roles. Saurfang, for example, is positioned strongly to be the leader of a rebellion against Sylvanas, which echoes the role of Vol'jin during Mists of Pandaria.
Now this is where we talk about Blizzard and their writing. I think anyone who enjoys or has enjoyed the game's lore would agree that it's a very cool fantasy setting. And there are many iconic characters whose stories sort of embody the larger conflicts and arcs of the greater narrative. The question is whether Blizzard would actually be so lazy or myopically forgetful to really run us through the same narrative we did in Mists.
I don't think they will. They claim they aren't, and while such claims are not always promises, I intend to give them the benefit of the doubt.
While a lot of this post is about stuff that we already have, there are some mentions of 8.1 events, so I'll put the spoiler cut in:
SPOILERS AHOY!
The main reason is that it's simply repetitive, though I think another factor is that Alliance players don't want to be roped into another internal conflict within the Horde. Horde players might also feel chagrined about the idea that they've got to pingpong between undying loyalty to a monstrous tyrant and being an honorable freedom fighter. Maybe it's the Alliance's turn to be conflicted internally?
And yet the actions we've seen Sylvanas take as Warchief have been seeming to take us down a very similar path that we walked with Garrosh. There are even equivalent characters playing similar roles. Saurfang, for example, is positioned strongly to be the leader of a rebellion against Sylvanas, which echoes the role of Vol'jin during Mists of Pandaria.
Now this is where we talk about Blizzard and their writing. I think anyone who enjoys or has enjoyed the game's lore would agree that it's a very cool fantasy setting. And there are many iconic characters whose stories sort of embody the larger conflicts and arcs of the greater narrative. The question is whether Blizzard would actually be so lazy or myopically forgetful to really run us through the same narrative we did in Mists.
I don't think they will. They claim they aren't, and while such claims are not always promises, I intend to give them the benefit of the doubt.
While a lot of this post is about stuff that we already have, there are some mentions of 8.1 events, so I'll put the spoiler cut in:
SPOILERS AHOY!
Friday, October 12, 2018
First Impressions of the Darkshore Warfront on the PTR
Darkshore will see its own new conflict between the Forsaken and the Night Elves. Like the Arathi Highlands Warfront, this will be a cyclical event with the Alliance and Horde alternating in their possession of the area.
I hopped on the PTR to check them out (naturally taking my Demon Hunter, which is my primary Night Elf character, as the testing phase is currently on the Alliance side to attack.)
Mechanically, the warfront works in a similar way, involving the capture of important locations and the defeat of local boss-enemies that need to be beaten in order to secure the territory.
I will mention this big disclaimer - the graphics were going totally insane while I was playing, giving me something akin to Google's Deep Dream combined with a Kafka-esque level of "censorship" (much of the text I saw was blanked out - obviously not intentional.)
Anyway, one other thing that's interesting is that claiming your initial base actually happens about a quarter or third of your way into the Warfront. Instead, we arrived via ship at the ruins of Auberdine and fought our way to Bashal-aran, where we made our camp. The mine was actually to the south and occupied by Murlocs and Naga while the lumber mill was north, putting it more along the way toward the Horde's base.
In true Night Elf style, collecting lumber worked differently - once the lumber mill is captured, you'll start to get wood piling up in your side's coffers just like iron. I really wonder if this will work differently for the Horde side, given that the Undead units in Warcraft III certainly cut down wood.
Anyway, while lumber and iron are still your main resources, it seems that lumber will be more important, and used to summon troops. Likewise, getting a storm essence and turning it in at your altar will now transform you into a different form - Night Elves seem to get Keepers of the Grove, Dryads, or Faerie Dragons, who seem to be built for tanking, dps, or healing respectively.
Ultimately, the Alliance pushes north toward Lor'danel and then eventually assaults an offshore platform where the enemy boss is located - you can commandeer Forsaken bats you've knocked down or hop on Hippogryphs to destroy the boats protecting the platform.
While our "boss" character was Maiev, the boss for the Forsaken side was a character I will consider under spoiler protections now. The Horde units we fought seemed to be primarily Forsaken and Goblin, so I could imagine Nathanos and perhaps some Goblin character as other bosses.
Given the insanity of the graphics on the PTR (I wonder if it just hadn't finished downloading?) I didn't get a great chance to check out the environments. To my mind, it felt a little more of a narrow channel to fight toward the enemy base, in contrast with the very clear (and MOBA-like) three rows that the Arathi Warfront has.
We also don't have the new gear in the PTR - it's currently awarding the same stuff we got from Arathi - so I wasn't able to browse the new looks (I think I'll likely be more into the Horde looks this time around, largely because I like the Forsaken aesthetic a lot. Good thing unlocking one appearance gives you the one for the other faction!)
I do think they should consider making higher difficulty versions of these as well as perhaps making battlegrounds based on them - given the ability for regions to go back and forth, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine just starting with each base and the middle regions uncontrolled. But I also think I need to run the Darkshore war front again once or twice (and with sane graphics) to get a better sense of just how different they're willing to let these get.
I hopped on the PTR to check them out (naturally taking my Demon Hunter, which is my primary Night Elf character, as the testing phase is currently on the Alliance side to attack.)
Mechanically, the warfront works in a similar way, involving the capture of important locations and the defeat of local boss-enemies that need to be beaten in order to secure the territory.
I will mention this big disclaimer - the graphics were going totally insane while I was playing, giving me something akin to Google's Deep Dream combined with a Kafka-esque level of "censorship" (much of the text I saw was blanked out - obviously not intentional.)
Anyway, one other thing that's interesting is that claiming your initial base actually happens about a quarter or third of your way into the Warfront. Instead, we arrived via ship at the ruins of Auberdine and fought our way to Bashal-aran, where we made our camp. The mine was actually to the south and occupied by Murlocs and Naga while the lumber mill was north, putting it more along the way toward the Horde's base.
In true Night Elf style, collecting lumber worked differently - once the lumber mill is captured, you'll start to get wood piling up in your side's coffers just like iron. I really wonder if this will work differently for the Horde side, given that the Undead units in Warcraft III certainly cut down wood.
Anyway, while lumber and iron are still your main resources, it seems that lumber will be more important, and used to summon troops. Likewise, getting a storm essence and turning it in at your altar will now transform you into a different form - Night Elves seem to get Keepers of the Grove, Dryads, or Faerie Dragons, who seem to be built for tanking, dps, or healing respectively.
Ultimately, the Alliance pushes north toward Lor'danel and then eventually assaults an offshore platform where the enemy boss is located - you can commandeer Forsaken bats you've knocked down or hop on Hippogryphs to destroy the boats protecting the platform.
While our "boss" character was Maiev, the boss for the Forsaken side was a character I will consider under spoiler protections now. The Horde units we fought seemed to be primarily Forsaken and Goblin, so I could imagine Nathanos and perhaps some Goblin character as other bosses.
Given the insanity of the graphics on the PTR (I wonder if it just hadn't finished downloading?) I didn't get a great chance to check out the environments. To my mind, it felt a little more of a narrow channel to fight toward the enemy base, in contrast with the very clear (and MOBA-like) three rows that the Arathi Warfront has.
We also don't have the new gear in the PTR - it's currently awarding the same stuff we got from Arathi - so I wasn't able to browse the new looks (I think I'll likely be more into the Horde looks this time around, largely because I like the Forsaken aesthetic a lot. Good thing unlocking one appearance gives you the one for the other faction!)
I do think they should consider making higher difficulty versions of these as well as perhaps making battlegrounds based on them - given the ability for regions to go back and forth, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine just starting with each base and the middle regions uncontrolled. But I also think I need to run the Darkshore war front again once or twice (and with sane graphics) to get a better sense of just how different they're willing to let these get.
Void and Death, Battle for Azeroth and the Expansion That Follows
I'll admit that there's a good chance I'm repeating myself here, but I do think that there are some big questions surrounding two primal forces at work in the current state of the Warcraft cosmos.
While far from achieving its ultimate goal, we should not discount the Burning Legion. Sargeras is the most powerful single entity we have encountered in the game, and while we did not get to fight him directly (somewhat to my chagrin, but the previous part of that sentence might explain why,) we did witness his capture.
How permanent is that capture? I don't really know. Sargeras managed to fight every other Titan and slay them (though clearly not permanently) in the initial conflicts, but perhaps with the entire Pantheon all focused within this cosmic prison, and with Illidan there to distract him, perhaps the Dark Titan might truly be under control.
He certainly is in the short term. And that means that, especially after the deaths of Archimonde and Kil'jaeden, the Burning Legion is scattered and leaderless. The engine of Antorus, powered by the soul of Argus' own Titanic world soul, is no longer functional. We don't really know what Antorus did, exactly, though I suspect it either allowed demons to come back even if slain in the Nether, or allowed them to come back far sooner than they otherwise would, or perhaps both.
The point is that the Legion as it was for 25,000 years is no more. Might we see some of its former members band together to continue their grand work? Certainly a possibility. But at least for now, that massive chess piece is off the board.
While that means that Azeroth and other populated worlds are safe from the destruction and demonic corruption the Legion wrought, there is a clear downside to this as well - the Void infection of the Old Gods can continue without much interruption. Yes, the people of Azeroth have proven effective at fighting off any dangers, but you don't see us building a fleet of Vindicaar-class frigates and blasting the hell out of Cthuloid-monstrosities across the cosmos (though that sounds freaking awesome.)
It is very clear that Battle for Azeroth is going to start shifting toward a greater focus on entities of the void. After the upcoming raid, which at the time of this post has most recently been renamed the Battle of Dazar'alor, our next will be the Crucible of Storms, which puts the Naga and N'zoth front and center.
Generally, most popular commenters that I have been reading or watching on Youtube are in agreement that we are most likely to visit Nazjatar quite soon, and possibly move on to Ny'alotha for BFA's final patch.
On the other hand, some hold the opinion that we might not face N'zoth this time around, instead getting a fight with Azshara followed by a greater focus on the faction conflict for BFA's climax.
Another theory goes that if we fight N'zoth as the final boss here, we'll be going to fight the Void Lords - the beings that created the Old Gods - on K'aresh, the homeland of the Ethereals.
On the other hand, anyone paying attention to the lore will note a strong presence for Death magic as a primal force that plays a big role in BFA.
Now, some unify these things, suggesting, for example, that Ny'alotha might be in the Shadowlands and not on the material plane of Azeroth.
To my mind, however, I think that Blizzard's creative team would benefit from introducing a new threat that could rival the Void and the Fel. With the Legion on ice as it were, WoW could be in danger of falling into the trap of having only one real villain. One of the things that makes the Warcraft cosmos so compelling (and more interesting in my mind than Diablo's, even though I thought Reaper of Souls provided a really interesting twist on its black/white mythos) is that while there are good guys that disagree and even hate one another, there are also many different villains who detest one another and have separate and conflicting goals. It lets us do fun things like ally with a powerful eldritch entity trapped in a knife against the Burning Legion.
So with the Legion put to bed, it's important to build up something that is powerful on a cosmic scale that is on par with the Old Gods. And I think that the primal force of Death is a pretty good one.
Plus, Warcraft does gothic/spooky really well (it probably works so well because it's not the whole game, and so you can get excited about it when it comes along and not feel bored of it like Jack Skellington in Nightmare Before Christmas.)
Between Bwonsamdi, repeated references to Arthas, the Drust, and Bolvar Fordragon's daughter, there are a bunch of things revolving around the force of death in BFA, and that's before we even get to the fact that Sylvanas is the instigator of this war - someone who has been seeking to master Death to preserve her people and herself.
In my mind, I think this serves much the same purpose that the many Old God references in Legion did. Legion was very much about the Burning Legion and ended with our assault on their homeworld. I suspect that BFA could very likely have us end up fighting N'zoth directly and ultimately leaving all these Death/Shadowlands references for what comes next.
I think that the most important story in regards to the next expansion is that of Vol'jin. We've seen that Bwonsamdi lost his soul, and after some time (now that G'huun is killable in LFR,) we've been able to continue those quests and see Vol'jin truly return as a spirit and begin to advise Talanji - presumably setting her up to be the Queen of the Zandalari Empire and perhaps not be bound to Bwonsamdi as Rastakhan seemed to doom her to do.
8.1 Spoilers Ahead.
While far from achieving its ultimate goal, we should not discount the Burning Legion. Sargeras is the most powerful single entity we have encountered in the game, and while we did not get to fight him directly (somewhat to my chagrin, but the previous part of that sentence might explain why,) we did witness his capture.
How permanent is that capture? I don't really know. Sargeras managed to fight every other Titan and slay them (though clearly not permanently) in the initial conflicts, but perhaps with the entire Pantheon all focused within this cosmic prison, and with Illidan there to distract him, perhaps the Dark Titan might truly be under control.
He certainly is in the short term. And that means that, especially after the deaths of Archimonde and Kil'jaeden, the Burning Legion is scattered and leaderless. The engine of Antorus, powered by the soul of Argus' own Titanic world soul, is no longer functional. We don't really know what Antorus did, exactly, though I suspect it either allowed demons to come back even if slain in the Nether, or allowed them to come back far sooner than they otherwise would, or perhaps both.
The point is that the Legion as it was for 25,000 years is no more. Might we see some of its former members band together to continue their grand work? Certainly a possibility. But at least for now, that massive chess piece is off the board.
While that means that Azeroth and other populated worlds are safe from the destruction and demonic corruption the Legion wrought, there is a clear downside to this as well - the Void infection of the Old Gods can continue without much interruption. Yes, the people of Azeroth have proven effective at fighting off any dangers, but you don't see us building a fleet of Vindicaar-class frigates and blasting the hell out of Cthuloid-monstrosities across the cosmos (though that sounds freaking awesome.)
It is very clear that Battle for Azeroth is going to start shifting toward a greater focus on entities of the void. After the upcoming raid, which at the time of this post has most recently been renamed the Battle of Dazar'alor, our next will be the Crucible of Storms, which puts the Naga and N'zoth front and center.
Generally, most popular commenters that I have been reading or watching on Youtube are in agreement that we are most likely to visit Nazjatar quite soon, and possibly move on to Ny'alotha for BFA's final patch.
On the other hand, some hold the opinion that we might not face N'zoth this time around, instead getting a fight with Azshara followed by a greater focus on the faction conflict for BFA's climax.
Another theory goes that if we fight N'zoth as the final boss here, we'll be going to fight the Void Lords - the beings that created the Old Gods - on K'aresh, the homeland of the Ethereals.
On the other hand, anyone paying attention to the lore will note a strong presence for Death magic as a primal force that plays a big role in BFA.
Now, some unify these things, suggesting, for example, that Ny'alotha might be in the Shadowlands and not on the material plane of Azeroth.
To my mind, however, I think that Blizzard's creative team would benefit from introducing a new threat that could rival the Void and the Fel. With the Legion on ice as it were, WoW could be in danger of falling into the trap of having only one real villain. One of the things that makes the Warcraft cosmos so compelling (and more interesting in my mind than Diablo's, even though I thought Reaper of Souls provided a really interesting twist on its black/white mythos) is that while there are good guys that disagree and even hate one another, there are also many different villains who detest one another and have separate and conflicting goals. It lets us do fun things like ally with a powerful eldritch entity trapped in a knife against the Burning Legion.
So with the Legion put to bed, it's important to build up something that is powerful on a cosmic scale that is on par with the Old Gods. And I think that the primal force of Death is a pretty good one.
Plus, Warcraft does gothic/spooky really well (it probably works so well because it's not the whole game, and so you can get excited about it when it comes along and not feel bored of it like Jack Skellington in Nightmare Before Christmas.)
Between Bwonsamdi, repeated references to Arthas, the Drust, and Bolvar Fordragon's daughter, there are a bunch of things revolving around the force of death in BFA, and that's before we even get to the fact that Sylvanas is the instigator of this war - someone who has been seeking to master Death to preserve her people and herself.
In my mind, I think this serves much the same purpose that the many Old God references in Legion did. Legion was very much about the Burning Legion and ended with our assault on their homeworld. I suspect that BFA could very likely have us end up fighting N'zoth directly and ultimately leaving all these Death/Shadowlands references for what comes next.
I think that the most important story in regards to the next expansion is that of Vol'jin. We've seen that Bwonsamdi lost his soul, and after some time (now that G'huun is killable in LFR,) we've been able to continue those quests and see Vol'jin truly return as a spirit and begin to advise Talanji - presumably setting her up to be the Queen of the Zandalari Empire and perhaps not be bound to Bwonsamdi as Rastakhan seemed to doom her to do.
8.1 Spoilers Ahead.
A Nyarlathotep for Warcraft
Lovecraft, whose cosmic horror really defined many of the tropes of the genre (even if his works were heavily influenced by earlier writers like Robert M. Chambers - though don't we all stand on the shoulders of giants, in a city of cyclopean architecture over which dead winds blow and cruel stars stare from above?) had a pantheon of gross monsters that were ultra-powerful gods within a callous and indifferent universe. Beings like Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth were probably the most important, and were both defined as being essentially ignorant of humanity because of how small and irrelevant we are. Yog-Sothoth is omnipresent, but always sort of just outside of reality, whereas Azathoth creates the universe from its mad gibbering, not really intelligent or aware of what it is doing despite its massive power level.
Nyarlathotep is exceptional, though, because he/it/whatever does actually seem to pay attention to humanity. That's not a good thing. While it's not remotely human, and has thousands of forms (I don't know that any is a "true" form,) one that he likes to take is that of a human, and uses this form to interact with humanity.
In a sense, Nyarlathotep is a devil-like figure, offering forbidden knowledge and power, fully aware that these "gifts" will destroy those who receive them. Lovecraft's cosmos is decidedly non-Abrahamic in its conception, with no benevolent god, and certainly none of Christianity and Islam's good/evil dichotomy, and so demons and such simply fall into the broader category of alien (he was a fan of the word "eldritch") influences.
Naturally, Warcraft, like a lot of fantasy properties that came after Lovecraft, holds within it both a more traditional "legions of hell" demonic force as well as the disturbingly reality-undermining forces of the eldritch abomination. (Granted, especially for the former, they give them a different spin. The Burning Legion is demonic but also like an intergalactic empire with a lot of sci-fi elements as well.)
In Warcraft, we have the Old Gods as the most clearly Lovecraftian-influenced entities - C'thun is clearly named after C'thulhu, Yogg-Saron is based on Yog-Sothoth, and even Azeroth (despite the general feeling being that she is a benevolent Titan-to-be) sounds a whole lot like Azathoth.
As we learned more about the Prophet Zul, and his violent reunification of the ancient Zandalari Empire, I started to suspect he might not actually be a Troll, but instead a wandering Old God in Troll form. Zul, after all, is not really a name so much as a title. Zul'jin basically meant "great leader," and we've seen capital cities/centers of kingdoms called Zul'Aman, Zul'Gurub, Zul'Farrak, Zul'Drak, and even Zul'dazar (though it's not the Dazari Empire because the sacred mountain was more important for their name than their first true king.) These names seem to imply a kind of Great "Name of Kingdom" nomenclature for capitals. This echoes real-world places like Great Zimbabwe, once the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe from the middle ages. So Zul is basically a guy walking around with the name "Great."
Turns out that he's not an Old God, though as we've seen (and I think we're getting to a point where 8.0 plot is outside of spoiler protections) he is a cultist of an Old God (or Old God Like Entity) in G'huun (I really need to do that last LFR wing, probably on my shaman so I can do the Vol'jin quest.)
I'll confess I was a little disappointed to see my theory that there's a Nyarlathotep-equivalent on Azeroth refuted.
But... maybe it wasn't. Maybe I was just looking at the wrong person... or thing.
SPOILERS AHOY!
Nyarlathotep is exceptional, though, because he/it/whatever does actually seem to pay attention to humanity. That's not a good thing. While it's not remotely human, and has thousands of forms (I don't know that any is a "true" form,) one that he likes to take is that of a human, and uses this form to interact with humanity.
In a sense, Nyarlathotep is a devil-like figure, offering forbidden knowledge and power, fully aware that these "gifts" will destroy those who receive them. Lovecraft's cosmos is decidedly non-Abrahamic in its conception, with no benevolent god, and certainly none of Christianity and Islam's good/evil dichotomy, and so demons and such simply fall into the broader category of alien (he was a fan of the word "eldritch") influences.
Naturally, Warcraft, like a lot of fantasy properties that came after Lovecraft, holds within it both a more traditional "legions of hell" demonic force as well as the disturbingly reality-undermining forces of the eldritch abomination. (Granted, especially for the former, they give them a different spin. The Burning Legion is demonic but also like an intergalactic empire with a lot of sci-fi elements as well.)
In Warcraft, we have the Old Gods as the most clearly Lovecraftian-influenced entities - C'thun is clearly named after C'thulhu, Yogg-Saron is based on Yog-Sothoth, and even Azeroth (despite the general feeling being that she is a benevolent Titan-to-be) sounds a whole lot like Azathoth.
As we learned more about the Prophet Zul, and his violent reunification of the ancient Zandalari Empire, I started to suspect he might not actually be a Troll, but instead a wandering Old God in Troll form. Zul, after all, is not really a name so much as a title. Zul'jin basically meant "great leader," and we've seen capital cities/centers of kingdoms called Zul'Aman, Zul'Gurub, Zul'Farrak, Zul'Drak, and even Zul'dazar (though it's not the Dazari Empire because the sacred mountain was more important for their name than their first true king.) These names seem to imply a kind of Great "Name of Kingdom" nomenclature for capitals. This echoes real-world places like Great Zimbabwe, once the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe from the middle ages. So Zul is basically a guy walking around with the name "Great."
Turns out that he's not an Old God, though as we've seen (and I think we're getting to a point where 8.0 plot is outside of spoiler protections) he is a cultist of an Old God (or Old God Like Entity) in G'huun (I really need to do that last LFR wing, probably on my shaman so I can do the Vol'jin quest.)
I'll confess I was a little disappointed to see my theory that there's a Nyarlathotep-equivalent on Azeroth refuted.
But... maybe it wasn't. Maybe I was just looking at the wrong person... or thing.
SPOILERS AHOY!
Saturday, October 6, 2018
Spoiled by Suramar
Legion was my favorite expansion for a number of reasons - between the introduction of the second hero class (echoing my previous favorite,) the very clear sense of stakes that were particularly missing in the previous expansion, and the cool class-specific content that really made you feel like you were playing a character who had chosen a certain way of life, there was a ton going for it.
But possibly my favorite was the introduction of a true max-level zone in Suramar.
We had seen previous attempts at this - starting with Burning Crusade, we had gotten new zones for max-level players, but these tended to be hubs for daily quests or other repeatable and low-canon-impact activities. If you wanted the kind of thorough story arcs and plots and the quests to support them, you really only got that while leveling up.
But Suramar gave us enough quests that it seemed to have even more content than leveling zones like Stormheim or Highmountain. The ongoing story of the Dusk Lily Rebellion felt truly epic because we saw it grow from such a small seed to a total overthrow of the corrupt collaborator regime.
Of all the Allied Races, the only one that has really troubled me is the Nightborne, and I think that's because they did such a good job of making us feel invested in the efforts of Thalyssra, Oculeth, Valtrois, Silgryn, and the others. Canonically they decided that it had been the Blood Elves who put in more effort to aid in the rebellion, but as someone who played through both the 7.0 and 7.1 plots three times on Alliance characters, the Nightborne's loyalty to the Horde and opposition to the Alliance feels like a painful and unexpected betrayal.
Still, complications of canon when you have two player factions aside, the Suramar story during Legion felt great. It took the successes of the 5.1 story quests and enhanced them by building an entire zone to support them - not to mention several other questing hubs that told other stories in the zone but still expected a max-level character.
We really haven't seen anything quite like it since. Argus had its story quests, but these felt like less of a continuous story and more like a small handful of quick chapters that primarily served to introduce zones for world quests. Don't get me wrong - I think Argus was spectacular and a really exciting place to take the game (especially as a big Draenei fan.)
But in BFA, we've gotten very little in the way of this sort of questing. The War Campaign is meant to play a similar role, but it feels much more like 5.1's quests than anything of Suramar caliber. In part, the two-continent system for the expansion, while in most regards a really successful feature, is partially to blame.
Part of the concept of BFA was that the other faction's continent is a set of max-level zones for you.
But the quests don't really go into a ton of detail about the zone's stories. For example, Alliance characters ultimately learn nearly nothing about the Blood Trolls in Nazmir - you know that the Blood Trolls are evil and that an Alliance officer sent to the swamp went crazy and joined them, but there's no mention at all of G'huun or of the massive Titan facility that is the source of all this madness. There is some interesting dramatic irony that one can infer from the fact that the Horde might think the Alliance is willing to tolerate the corruption of Lord Stormsong, but ultimately there's very little story to these incursions into the other faction's zones.
Dazar'alor and Boralus appear to provide some of the urban adventuring that we got in Suramar (which, granted, with its stealth-based gameplay might have felt frustrating for those not used to playing a Rogue) but we don't get a ton of it. Horde players do go to the Zanchuli pyramid a couple times in Zuldazar quests, as well as the Amani and Farraki neighborhoods, but Alliance players do very little questing in the non-instanced version of Boralus. There are plenty of neighborhoods and regions that I haven't seen used for anything.
The key is that the story dries up a bit. Horde players get a bit more once they hit revered with the Zandalari Empire, but most of the plot for both factions feels largely resolved not long after hitting the level cap.
As such, the main motivation to play characters who have hit that cap is just standard gearing, which of course has always been part of the game, but it has left me feeling more motivated to level alts than work much on anyone other than my main for each faction to work on reputation grinds for allied races. So while my Human is now gradually churning through Proudmoore Admiralty (having already hit exalted with 7th Legion and unlocked Dark Iron Dwarves - the Warlock is now level 45) and the Tauren is picking up Emissary quests for Honorbound and Zandalari Empire, there's not a ton of stuff to do for those who are content to have LFR-quality gear for now acquired far more consistently through Warfronts.
I don't want to throw blame at one my favorite aspects of BFA - namely the entirely separate leveling experiences (give or take a few familiar quests when first glimpsing your opposing faction's continent) - but I do wonder if the need to create three rather large zones with enough content to take you through roughly three levels each (making up for the tenth level through those excursions to the other continent and some of the introductory quests) twice over due to the two continents might have taken away from some of the energy to create a significant amount of max-level story content.
It's possible that they wanted to pace it differently and that we'll get more in 8.1, but it's also possible that they're simply not planning anything as extensive as the Suramar experience in this expansion.
If true, it's a bit of a shame. For me, the core of my enjoyment of the game is the story and the sense of my character's place in the world. I want to gear up and maximize my player power because that makes the characters feel like the badasses they're supposed to be. Without story, it's all just a bunch of flashing numbers.
And I don't mean to say that there's no story in BFA - on the contrary, it's packed with a lot of interesting stuff. Are there some inconsistencies and weird story choices they've made? Sure. But that was true in Legion as well (like, if the whole reason Mardum existed was because demons naturally regenerated in the Twisting Nether, what was the point of Antorus? That's never addressed in-game.) But it does feel that, to a large extent, outside of mythic dungeons and world quests, there's not a lot of reason to leave Boralus or Dazar'alor, and the story feels pretty stalled if you've done the short chains like Pride of Kul Tiras and finished the rather small number of War Campaign quests.
But possibly my favorite was the introduction of a true max-level zone in Suramar.
We had seen previous attempts at this - starting with Burning Crusade, we had gotten new zones for max-level players, but these tended to be hubs for daily quests or other repeatable and low-canon-impact activities. If you wanted the kind of thorough story arcs and plots and the quests to support them, you really only got that while leveling up.
But Suramar gave us enough quests that it seemed to have even more content than leveling zones like Stormheim or Highmountain. The ongoing story of the Dusk Lily Rebellion felt truly epic because we saw it grow from such a small seed to a total overthrow of the corrupt collaborator regime.
Of all the Allied Races, the only one that has really troubled me is the Nightborne, and I think that's because they did such a good job of making us feel invested in the efforts of Thalyssra, Oculeth, Valtrois, Silgryn, and the others. Canonically they decided that it had been the Blood Elves who put in more effort to aid in the rebellion, but as someone who played through both the 7.0 and 7.1 plots three times on Alliance characters, the Nightborne's loyalty to the Horde and opposition to the Alliance feels like a painful and unexpected betrayal.
Still, complications of canon when you have two player factions aside, the Suramar story during Legion felt great. It took the successes of the 5.1 story quests and enhanced them by building an entire zone to support them - not to mention several other questing hubs that told other stories in the zone but still expected a max-level character.
We really haven't seen anything quite like it since. Argus had its story quests, but these felt like less of a continuous story and more like a small handful of quick chapters that primarily served to introduce zones for world quests. Don't get me wrong - I think Argus was spectacular and a really exciting place to take the game (especially as a big Draenei fan.)
But in BFA, we've gotten very little in the way of this sort of questing. The War Campaign is meant to play a similar role, but it feels much more like 5.1's quests than anything of Suramar caliber. In part, the two-continent system for the expansion, while in most regards a really successful feature, is partially to blame.
Part of the concept of BFA was that the other faction's continent is a set of max-level zones for you.
But the quests don't really go into a ton of detail about the zone's stories. For example, Alliance characters ultimately learn nearly nothing about the Blood Trolls in Nazmir - you know that the Blood Trolls are evil and that an Alliance officer sent to the swamp went crazy and joined them, but there's no mention at all of G'huun or of the massive Titan facility that is the source of all this madness. There is some interesting dramatic irony that one can infer from the fact that the Horde might think the Alliance is willing to tolerate the corruption of Lord Stormsong, but ultimately there's very little story to these incursions into the other faction's zones.
Dazar'alor and Boralus appear to provide some of the urban adventuring that we got in Suramar (which, granted, with its stealth-based gameplay might have felt frustrating for those not used to playing a Rogue) but we don't get a ton of it. Horde players do go to the Zanchuli pyramid a couple times in Zuldazar quests, as well as the Amani and Farraki neighborhoods, but Alliance players do very little questing in the non-instanced version of Boralus. There are plenty of neighborhoods and regions that I haven't seen used for anything.
The key is that the story dries up a bit. Horde players get a bit more once they hit revered with the Zandalari Empire, but most of the plot for both factions feels largely resolved not long after hitting the level cap.
As such, the main motivation to play characters who have hit that cap is just standard gearing, which of course has always been part of the game, but it has left me feeling more motivated to level alts than work much on anyone other than my main for each faction to work on reputation grinds for allied races. So while my Human is now gradually churning through Proudmoore Admiralty (having already hit exalted with 7th Legion and unlocked Dark Iron Dwarves - the Warlock is now level 45) and the Tauren is picking up Emissary quests for Honorbound and Zandalari Empire, there's not a ton of stuff to do for those who are content to have LFR-quality gear for now acquired far more consistently through Warfronts.
I don't want to throw blame at one my favorite aspects of BFA - namely the entirely separate leveling experiences (give or take a few familiar quests when first glimpsing your opposing faction's continent) - but I do wonder if the need to create three rather large zones with enough content to take you through roughly three levels each (making up for the tenth level through those excursions to the other continent and some of the introductory quests) twice over due to the two continents might have taken away from some of the energy to create a significant amount of max-level story content.
It's possible that they wanted to pace it differently and that we'll get more in 8.1, but it's also possible that they're simply not planning anything as extensive as the Suramar experience in this expansion.
If true, it's a bit of a shame. For me, the core of my enjoyment of the game is the story and the sense of my character's place in the world. I want to gear up and maximize my player power because that makes the characters feel like the badasses they're supposed to be. Without story, it's all just a bunch of flashing numbers.
And I don't mean to say that there's no story in BFA - on the contrary, it's packed with a lot of interesting stuff. Are there some inconsistencies and weird story choices they've made? Sure. But that was true in Legion as well (like, if the whole reason Mardum existed was because demons naturally regenerated in the Twisting Nether, what was the point of Antorus? That's never addressed in-game.) But it does feel that, to a large extent, outside of mythic dungeons and world quests, there's not a lot of reason to leave Boralus or Dazar'alor, and the story feels pretty stalled if you've done the short chains like Pride of Kul Tiras and finished the rather small number of War Campaign quests.
Friday, October 5, 2018
What Price Zuldazar?
While 8.1 is on the PTR, and thus is subject to change, I suspect that most of the story as it has been discovered will make it live and thus be canon. So I'm going to talk about that and the course of the current Alliance/Horde war.
I'm primarily concerned with narrative flow rather than intricacies. One could argue that with her mastery over necromancy, Sylvanas has an undeniable advantage in the prosecution of war. I don't really want to get into the nitty-gritty of whether Kul Tiran Tidesages or Zandalari spirit magic makes for a better navy - I'm mainly interested in the flow of the story.
Battle for Azeroth began with the Horde striking a devastating blow against the Alliance. Despite some skirmishing in Silithus surrounding the sword of Sargeras and the azerite that was bubbling out of the wound, neither the Horde nor the Alliance knew that they were about to be in so dire a conflict - only Sylvanas, Saurfang, and Nathanos knew that the Horde forces assembled in theory to defend Azerite mining operations in Silithus were in fact meant for the Night Elf lands. These three Horde leaders pulled a cunning ploy to ensure the Alliance's main forces in Kalimdor were caught out of position while they made this advance.
The result was the destruction of Teldrassil, and whether that was the true plan all along or not (something only Sylvanas would know,) it left one of the Alliance's most powerful member races devastated and scattered.
The response was swift and decisive, but also entirely predicted. Anduin rallied the Alliance forces to attack the Undercity, easily cutting a massive swath through Tirisfal, annihilating the town of Brill (we never saw what happened to its people, which I think is a missed opportunity) and laying siege to the old Capital City of Lordaeron under which the Undercity stood.
But while this might have felt like a great victory for the Alliance and a proportional response to Teldrassil, the truth is that Sylvanas had not only expected it, but even counted on it, trying to use herself and her city in an attempt to decapitate Alliance leadership. This effort failed due to Jaina's surprise arrival, but the fact is that, unlike Teldrassil, which was serving as a refuge for noncombatants when it burned, Undercity had been fully evacuated, meaning that the actual loss of Forsaken life was probably minimal.
Not that Anduin, at least, was aiming to slay as many civilians as possible - quite the opposite, in fact. But it does mean that the loss of Undercity cannot be seen as the sort of atrocity that Teldrassil was.
All of this meaning that the Alliance needs a win.
But in terms of narrative, what cost will that win incur?
SPOILERS AHOY
I'm primarily concerned with narrative flow rather than intricacies. One could argue that with her mastery over necromancy, Sylvanas has an undeniable advantage in the prosecution of war. I don't really want to get into the nitty-gritty of whether Kul Tiran Tidesages or Zandalari spirit magic makes for a better navy - I'm mainly interested in the flow of the story.
Battle for Azeroth began with the Horde striking a devastating blow against the Alliance. Despite some skirmishing in Silithus surrounding the sword of Sargeras and the azerite that was bubbling out of the wound, neither the Horde nor the Alliance knew that they were about to be in so dire a conflict - only Sylvanas, Saurfang, and Nathanos knew that the Horde forces assembled in theory to defend Azerite mining operations in Silithus were in fact meant for the Night Elf lands. These three Horde leaders pulled a cunning ploy to ensure the Alliance's main forces in Kalimdor were caught out of position while they made this advance.
The result was the destruction of Teldrassil, and whether that was the true plan all along or not (something only Sylvanas would know,) it left one of the Alliance's most powerful member races devastated and scattered.
The response was swift and decisive, but also entirely predicted. Anduin rallied the Alliance forces to attack the Undercity, easily cutting a massive swath through Tirisfal, annihilating the town of Brill (we never saw what happened to its people, which I think is a missed opportunity) and laying siege to the old Capital City of Lordaeron under which the Undercity stood.
But while this might have felt like a great victory for the Alliance and a proportional response to Teldrassil, the truth is that Sylvanas had not only expected it, but even counted on it, trying to use herself and her city in an attempt to decapitate Alliance leadership. This effort failed due to Jaina's surprise arrival, but the fact is that, unlike Teldrassil, which was serving as a refuge for noncombatants when it burned, Undercity had been fully evacuated, meaning that the actual loss of Forsaken life was probably minimal.
Not that Anduin, at least, was aiming to slay as many civilians as possible - quite the opposite, in fact. But it does mean that the loss of Undercity cannot be seen as the sort of atrocity that Teldrassil was.
All of this meaning that the Alliance needs a win.
But in terms of narrative, what cost will that win incur?
SPOILERS AHOY
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