When we defeated Arthas at the top of Icecrown Citadel, thanks to a literal miracle that freed Tirion Fordring from icy captivity and allowed the Ashbringer to shatter Frostmourne (I really would have liked to see some special thing happen if a Frost Death Knight and a Retribution Paladin were near one another during Legion,) Arthas died. But the spirit of his father Terenas, long trapped within the blade, and now seemingly free, told us that without a Lich King, the Scourge would run rampant and cover the world in death. So, though Tirion was initially willing to carry that burden, instead the Red-dragonfire-scorched Bolvar Fordragon (weirdly fitting surname there) took on the role instead.
Bolvar has acted subtly since then. Death Knight (and Fire Mages, briefly) saw him during Legion, and we met him again on a fact finding mission about Vol'jin during BFA. As far as we can tell, Bolvar has kept the promise to reign in the Scourge, confining them to Northrend. They certainly aren't waging their old zombie apocalypse war that they had previously been doing.
But there are some questions that remain.
Why, exactly, does there always have to be a Lich King?
Arthas was running it as a unified military operation. Are we to believe that the Scourge as a disorganized horde would be a greater danger? In other words: how was Arthas making the Scourge less of a threat?
Admittedly, by installing a Lich King who wanted to keep a hold on the Scourge, we might have just gotten a serious upgrade. Maybe Arthas was the worst scenario, but that no Lich King would be almost as bad, and by putting Bolvar in charge, we downgraded the threat significantly.
More recent sources have suggested that there was an element of Arthas that had "greater good" intentions - the Scourge was a way to unite the peoples of Azeroth to fight off the Burning Legion.
In fact, I've long suspected that Death Magic in Warcraft is a bit of a trump card against a lot of other evils. The Scourge seemed unaffected by Saronite even when the entire fortress-complex of Icecrown was made of the stuff. If the undead are immune to the whispers of the Old Gods, that's a pretty freaking big deal. Indeed, we even do a quest for a N'raqi in Icecrown to kill his Ymirjar captor, where a bunch of undead Val'kyr are forcing captured humanoids to mine Saronite, unaffected by the whispers while the miners are going insane.
Given that there is encrypted dialogue for the Lich King and Darion Mograine, and new textures suggesting allied races might be able to become Death Knights, it seems possible that the Lich King is at least going to play some role in something in 8.3.
Ironically, the very fact that it's encrypted has gotten a lot of people buzzing over whether it's a strong hint for the next expansion.
Of course, if it remains encrypted until the patch goes live, that means we're actually going to know what the next expansion will be before we actually hear this stuff.
The Scourge are my favorite Warcraft villains. There's something about their aesthetic, and the horror of seeing former heroes become villains, that works very well within the Warcraft story structure. I do wonder a bit whether Blizzard realized how long WoW would last when they decided to have us defeat them in the second expansion. On the other hand, Wrath of the Lich King was in a lot of ways a high water mark for the game (I think Legion finally unseated it as the best expansion, but I still look fondly on Wrath.) Unlike Illidan in Burning Crusade, they made sure that Arthas would get due screen time and be built up as a compelling villain for the expansion, and I think they did that better than they had ever done before or have since. But Wrath came out eleven years ago, and I could imagine that that's long enough for them to feel like they could revisit the Scourge, or at least the undead as a major threat.
So I'm still feeling Shadowlands, basically.
Friday, October 11, 2019
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Three Weeks from Blizzcon: Expansion Eight Predictions
Blizzard, aside from dealing with the PR fallout from the whole Hearthstone/Blitzchung/China debacle, will also almost certainly be announcing the next World of Warcraft expansion at Blizzcon at the start of November.
This time every odd-numbered year is always a fun time for speculation and to put down the predictions we've got. It's fun to see how much we get right and how much we get wrong. For prior examples, here are posts I made previous times: Here's the one where I predicted N'zoth and Azshara as major bosses in this expansion. Here's the previous one in which I... um... also predicted Azshara, but instead we got Legion. And here's me way back in 2013 getting Warlords of Draenor mostly right except somehow thinking Anduin would have helped Garrosh escape Pandaria (and also thinking Warlords would be a much cooler expansion.
Now, these were generally from the day before the announcement, so I might make a more official one of these around Halloween (except I'll be pretty busy as I have two friends whose birthdays are October 30th) but for now, let me outline what I see as the three major possibilities for the expansion:
Also, a caveat: these three options are not mutually exclusive. While I'd like to see an expansion set entirely in the Shadowlands, we could have one that is mostly set in the real world, with forays into the Shadowlands, and that would need some larger land mass. But let's begin:
The Black Empire:
This is the one I think is least likely given the nature of 8.3. While Ny'alotha looks freaking awesome, and I'd love for it to be a whole continent for us to explore, it looks like they're mostly doing it as this sort of nightmare overlay of the world. It's not unthinkable that we could have an Old God-based expansion next, given how Warlords ended with a very Legion-themed raid that led into... Legion. If Ny'alotha ends with N'zoth somehow using his death or defeat to revive C'thun and Yogg-Saron, this could happen, but there are a couple questions to be asked if this were to be the case: where would it be? And who would be the big bad? Granted, the last few expansions haven't been very forthcoming on big bads - I'll give BFA a pass given that N'zoth's whole M.O. is to work behind the scenes - but my guess is that 8.3 is going to be the last we see of major Old God influence for a little bit.
The Dragon Isles:
Dragons have come back to play a somewhat larger part in a few quests lately, and of the three options, the Dragon Isles present the most obvious land mass for us to visit - you can easily have five zones, each dedicated to a different Dragonflight. We also know that the dragons have been struggling post-Deathwing with their fates and their ability to reproduce. I honestly think we might see this as a setting, but with the dragons holding more of a B-plot position in the narrative, and instead focusing on some other grave threat that happens to take us to the Dragon Isles. (Basically, this is the expansion-concept I can most easily see being mixed with the other two.)
The Shadowlands:
Death magic and undead. A realm of shadow, with villains like Mueh'zalla, Helya, and even Sylvanas. We could see the Scourge restored to prominence (given how they're maybe the most popular Warcraft villains, that would be fun) and have a super-spooky expansion. Frankly, this is the one I want the most. It's also the one I think has the most foreshadowing in its favor. Obviously, I've been wrong many times before, but this expansion could answer things like: where is Sylvanas going to make her next move? Who did Odyn make his deal with to create the first Val'kyr? What is Thros? What is, even, Ny'alotha? Who is Bwonsamdi's Boss? What is Bolvar up to?
So those are my three guesses. It could, of course, be none of those things, though I'd be surprised at that, as I usually get at least some detail right.
In terms of mechanics?
Well, historically we've gotten a new class with every other expansion, so in theory we should be getting one here. Tinkers are a common request, though I don't know how well they'd fit (on the other hand, with Mechgnomes and Vulpera becoming playable, you have two very obvious races for them if they want to go the limited options route like they did with Demon Hunters.) Necromancers would obviously step on some conceptual toes of Death Knights and Warlocks (poor Warlocks, who have lost things to DKs, DHs, and now potentially Necros) but would also fit very well in a Shadowlands expansion. Beyond those two, I can't really think of any obvious classes to add.
I do feel like we need to see some radical change to how factions work. I don't think we're going to eliminate factions altogether, but I imagine we'll see some ability for players to opt to either stay hardliners and fight the other side or to opt to embrace peace and maybe form groups to run dungeons or other instanced content with the other faction. I expect this to be one of the big features of the new expansion.
This time every odd-numbered year is always a fun time for speculation and to put down the predictions we've got. It's fun to see how much we get right and how much we get wrong. For prior examples, here are posts I made previous times: Here's the one where I predicted N'zoth and Azshara as major bosses in this expansion. Here's the previous one in which I... um... also predicted Azshara, but instead we got Legion. And here's me way back in 2013 getting Warlords of Draenor mostly right except somehow thinking Anduin would have helped Garrosh escape Pandaria (and also thinking Warlords would be a much cooler expansion.
Now, these were generally from the day before the announcement, so I might make a more official one of these around Halloween (except I'll be pretty busy as I have two friends whose birthdays are October 30th) but for now, let me outline what I see as the three major possibilities for the expansion:
Also, a caveat: these three options are not mutually exclusive. While I'd like to see an expansion set entirely in the Shadowlands, we could have one that is mostly set in the real world, with forays into the Shadowlands, and that would need some larger land mass. But let's begin:
The Black Empire:
This is the one I think is least likely given the nature of 8.3. While Ny'alotha looks freaking awesome, and I'd love for it to be a whole continent for us to explore, it looks like they're mostly doing it as this sort of nightmare overlay of the world. It's not unthinkable that we could have an Old God-based expansion next, given how Warlords ended with a very Legion-themed raid that led into... Legion. If Ny'alotha ends with N'zoth somehow using his death or defeat to revive C'thun and Yogg-Saron, this could happen, but there are a couple questions to be asked if this were to be the case: where would it be? And who would be the big bad? Granted, the last few expansions haven't been very forthcoming on big bads - I'll give BFA a pass given that N'zoth's whole M.O. is to work behind the scenes - but my guess is that 8.3 is going to be the last we see of major Old God influence for a little bit.
The Dragon Isles:
Dragons have come back to play a somewhat larger part in a few quests lately, and of the three options, the Dragon Isles present the most obvious land mass for us to visit - you can easily have five zones, each dedicated to a different Dragonflight. We also know that the dragons have been struggling post-Deathwing with their fates and their ability to reproduce. I honestly think we might see this as a setting, but with the dragons holding more of a B-plot position in the narrative, and instead focusing on some other grave threat that happens to take us to the Dragon Isles. (Basically, this is the expansion-concept I can most easily see being mixed with the other two.)
The Shadowlands:
Death magic and undead. A realm of shadow, with villains like Mueh'zalla, Helya, and even Sylvanas. We could see the Scourge restored to prominence (given how they're maybe the most popular Warcraft villains, that would be fun) and have a super-spooky expansion. Frankly, this is the one I want the most. It's also the one I think has the most foreshadowing in its favor. Obviously, I've been wrong many times before, but this expansion could answer things like: where is Sylvanas going to make her next move? Who did Odyn make his deal with to create the first Val'kyr? What is Thros? What is, even, Ny'alotha? Who is Bwonsamdi's Boss? What is Bolvar up to?
So those are my three guesses. It could, of course, be none of those things, though I'd be surprised at that, as I usually get at least some detail right.
In terms of mechanics?
Well, historically we've gotten a new class with every other expansion, so in theory we should be getting one here. Tinkers are a common request, though I don't know how well they'd fit (on the other hand, with Mechgnomes and Vulpera becoming playable, you have two very obvious races for them if they want to go the limited options route like they did with Demon Hunters.) Necromancers would obviously step on some conceptual toes of Death Knights and Warlocks (poor Warlocks, who have lost things to DKs, DHs, and now potentially Necros) but would also fit very well in a Shadowlands expansion. Beyond those two, I can't really think of any obvious classes to add.
I do feel like we need to see some radical change to how factions work. I don't think we're going to eliminate factions altogether, but I imagine we'll see some ability for players to opt to either stay hardliners and fight the other side or to opt to embrace peace and maybe form groups to run dungeons or other instanced content with the other faction. I expect this to be one of the big features of the new expansion.
New Death Knights?
All right, quick politics aside: I'll say that I'm extremely disappointed in Blizzard for banning Blitzchung and both disappointed and baffled that they apparently banned the people interviewing him. I'm hoping that this ban is rescinded, though I don't know how likely that is to happen.
The result is that, as a fan of Blizzard's games for over a decade, I'm hurt that this company, which for so long has prided itself on being basically a studio made up of the sort of nerds who want to play their games, is sacrificing its values to avoid offending an authoritarian regime that, like most authoritarians, is too thin-skinned to weather any sort of criticism, and instead lashes out at dissenting speech.
If you think the proper action is to boycott Blizzard games, I understand and respect that position. Clearly a lot of powerful American companies have compromised their ethics in order to do business in China (and other places) and it's very difficult to avoid any of those businesses given the vast complexity of this global economy. Whether that means we just have to sigh and deal with the ethical problems that leaves us with or vigilantly cut off any company that acts unethically is something I think each individual has to decide for themselves.
For now, I'm going to continue covering Blizzard games that mean something to me, hoping that we'll see some change in their position regarding this recent debacle. I think that if they don't want the upcoming Blizzcon to be a PR disaster, they should do whatever they can to appease an angry fanbase before it comes, though I think a great deal of the damage is already done.
In the meantime, let's talk about one of the curious details discovered in 8.3's PTR:
It seems that there are new Death Knight skins for several Allied Races, as well as new encrypted voice lines from Darion Mograine and the Lich King.
While Goblins and Worgen were allowed to become Death Knights in Cataclysm, no new race since then has had that as a class option. And to a large extent, that makes logical sense. The starting experience for Death Knights takes place in a very specific time - after Arthas first stepped off of the Frozen Throne but before he was killed and replaced with Bolvar, which all took place during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. While Worgen and Goblins both existed in the world prior to Wrath (though at least with Worgen they had to come up with a bit of an excuse to have them not be feral) there are some races, like the Void Elves, that did not even exist prior to Arthas' demise. And races like the Nightborne or the Lightforged Draenei would have had no contact with Scourge-controlled parts of Azeroth at that time.
Given that those latter two are specifically found among these textures (which look horrific as all racial textures do, given that they're totally flattened out) one wonders what this could mean for future Death Knights.
Obviously, in Legion the Ebon Blade was both actively recruiting and forged an alliance with the Lich King. In fact, a lot of people have pointed out that that alliance starts to look more and more like reabsorption into the Scourge by the end of the Death Knight class hall campaign, albeit a Scourge that one can deal with at least a little.
Given the many hints at some sort of Shadowlands expansion coming in 9.0 (yes, the siege of Stormwind raid never happened, but given that we're fighting N'zoth now, I think Sylvanas could easily lead us into the realm of shadow next, especially with all the death magic stuff happening in BFA,) it seems highly possible that we could see a more prominent role for Bolvar and all things undead. While I'm still kinda sorta crossing my fingers for a Necromancer class (thinking ranged caster and healer,) we could also see an expansion of options for Death Knights.
We are, of course, still getting news about 8.3, but with Blizzcon coming in only a couple weeks, I'm also really curious to see what we'll be getting next.
The result is that, as a fan of Blizzard's games for over a decade, I'm hurt that this company, which for so long has prided itself on being basically a studio made up of the sort of nerds who want to play their games, is sacrificing its values to avoid offending an authoritarian regime that, like most authoritarians, is too thin-skinned to weather any sort of criticism, and instead lashes out at dissenting speech.
If you think the proper action is to boycott Blizzard games, I understand and respect that position. Clearly a lot of powerful American companies have compromised their ethics in order to do business in China (and other places) and it's very difficult to avoid any of those businesses given the vast complexity of this global economy. Whether that means we just have to sigh and deal with the ethical problems that leaves us with or vigilantly cut off any company that acts unethically is something I think each individual has to decide for themselves.
For now, I'm going to continue covering Blizzard games that mean something to me, hoping that we'll see some change in their position regarding this recent debacle. I think that if they don't want the upcoming Blizzcon to be a PR disaster, they should do whatever they can to appease an angry fanbase before it comes, though I think a great deal of the damage is already done.
In the meantime, let's talk about one of the curious details discovered in 8.3's PTR:
It seems that there are new Death Knight skins for several Allied Races, as well as new encrypted voice lines from Darion Mograine and the Lich King.
While Goblins and Worgen were allowed to become Death Knights in Cataclysm, no new race since then has had that as a class option. And to a large extent, that makes logical sense. The starting experience for Death Knights takes place in a very specific time - after Arthas first stepped off of the Frozen Throne but before he was killed and replaced with Bolvar, which all took place during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. While Worgen and Goblins both existed in the world prior to Wrath (though at least with Worgen they had to come up with a bit of an excuse to have them not be feral) there are some races, like the Void Elves, that did not even exist prior to Arthas' demise. And races like the Nightborne or the Lightforged Draenei would have had no contact with Scourge-controlled parts of Azeroth at that time.
Given that those latter two are specifically found among these textures (which look horrific as all racial textures do, given that they're totally flattened out) one wonders what this could mean for future Death Knights.
Obviously, in Legion the Ebon Blade was both actively recruiting and forged an alliance with the Lich King. In fact, a lot of people have pointed out that that alliance starts to look more and more like reabsorption into the Scourge by the end of the Death Knight class hall campaign, albeit a Scourge that one can deal with at least a little.
Given the many hints at some sort of Shadowlands expansion coming in 9.0 (yes, the siege of Stormwind raid never happened, but given that we're fighting N'zoth now, I think Sylvanas could easily lead us into the realm of shadow next, especially with all the death magic stuff happening in BFA,) it seems highly possible that we could see a more prominent role for Bolvar and all things undead. While I'm still kinda sorta crossing my fingers for a Necromancer class (thinking ranged caster and healer,) we could also see an expansion of options for Death Knights.
We are, of course, still getting news about 8.3, but with Blizzcon coming in only a couple weeks, I'm also really curious to see what we'll be getting next.
Hoping This is Still Accurate: August Announcement Claims MTG Arena is Coming to Macs
I played Magic Online for a while in college, but as a Mac user (in part due to just having grown up always using Macs but also making use of Final Cut Pro for professional reasons) it was a pain, as I had to use Parallels to run a very slow version of Windows on my computer.
Well, searching for news about whether the new computerized version of Magic would be available on Macs, according to this release they plan to release a Mac client "shortly" after the release of the PC version.
Given that the PC version just came out of Beta, it's really a question of how long "shortly" means to them.
I actually got the two Planeswalker decks (physical ones) that came out with Throne of Eldraine, and was pleasantly surprised to find that they come with a code to also unlock the decks in Arena. So I feel even more incentivized to try it should I be able to.
Fun fact: given that the last time I really played Magic was during the Time Spiral block, these versions of Rowan and Oko are actually the first Planeswalkers I've ever owned. (Note that they're not the same ones as in the main set - for one thing, Rowan is mono-red and not partnered with her brother Will.)
I'm very excited to play MTG, which I've always found a more interesting game than its obvious competitor, Hearthstone. Arena seems to be bringing in some of the nice features of Hearthstone, like the ability to earn card packs by playing and craft cards you don't have, but with the greater depth that MTG has.
Well, searching for news about whether the new computerized version of Magic would be available on Macs, according to this release they plan to release a Mac client "shortly" after the release of the PC version.
Given that the PC version just came out of Beta, it's really a question of how long "shortly" means to them.
I actually got the two Planeswalker decks (physical ones) that came out with Throne of Eldraine, and was pleasantly surprised to find that they come with a code to also unlock the decks in Arena. So I feel even more incentivized to try it should I be able to.
Fun fact: given that the last time I really played Magic was during the Time Spiral block, these versions of Rowan and Oko are actually the first Planeswalkers I've ever owned. (Note that they're not the same ones as in the main set - for one thing, Rowan is mono-red and not partnered with her brother Will.)
I'm very excited to play MTG, which I've always found a more interesting game than its obvious competitor, Hearthstone. Arena seems to be bringing in some of the nice features of Hearthstone, like the ability to earn card packs by playing and craft cards you don't have, but with the greater depth that MTG has.
Proposal for a Ravnica Episodic Campaign
I've been running a game of D&D for 4 years now, and if there's one thing I've definitely noticed as a DM in my late 20s/early 30s (I turned a third of a century yesterday, as in 33 1/3, so I think I might be in my mid-30s now, which is terrifying) is that the biggest obstacle to D&D is adult schedules (especially because I've got a bunch of actor friends who have nothing remotely resembling a 9-5, 40 hour work week - as if that's even a normal thing in this day and age.)
So my goal is to try to design a campaign (likely not to start for a while) that is built to accommodate a rotating cast of characters.
I've been playing a fair amount of Adventurer's League (two tier 2 characters and a number of tier 1s) which is mostly built around single-session adventures (though I also just got back from session 4 of Descent into Avernus. We are not in the Hells yet but at least we've discovered a diabolical plot by this point.)
Taking inspiration from this, my proposal is the following:
Each player is going to roll up a level 1 character. Every character has to belong to a guild, but I'm going to say people can pick whichever they want - even if there are duplicates (play the character you want is my philosophy.) I'm going to strongly encourage people to take the guild background affiliated with their chosen guild (like Dimir Operative or Boros Legionnaire,) but if they are playing an unusual role in the guild (for example, if they're one of the few Dimir who operate openly) I'll allow people to take custom backgrounds.
Race options will be pretty open. I'm going to encourage players to play the races mentioned or premiered in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, but we'll also allow reskins of existing races (Aarakocra for Aven, Tritons for Merfolk, Tieflings for Azra, Warforged for sentient Golems, etc.) as well as a homebrewed/altered version of the Ixalan/Zendikar Vampire race from the Plane Shift articles (skewing more toward the Ixalan verison, but with Blood-Drinkers and Mind-Drinkers as sub-races.)
And every class option will be open (possibly even UA options that didn't get published if they look ok to me.)
Players will level up after each session, but at first there will be a cap at level 4. Because we won't be sure who can play each time, we're going to hold that cap until most of the players have reached it.
However! While players can try out a different character and guild while they're capped (or switch at any time of course,) those who keep playing their level 4 characters will continue to amass renown with their guild (or guilds, if they're a Dimir Operative.) Along with treasure and such, this will give them an incentive to keep playing (other than, you know, the fun of it) even if they can't level up.
Then, once we hit a certain number of people at that level, we'll level up the whole campaign. Everyone goes to level 5, and we start the process anew, now doing tier 2-appropriate content.
Story-wise, I'll be keeping it mostly episodic, particularly in the early levels. The party will be a task force organized by the Office of the Guildpact, and generally I'll build adventures in which the antagonists are probably members of guilds the players are not part of (though not all antagonists must be fiendish plotting villains - we could easily have mishaps in Izzet or Simic labs where rogue Weirds or Krasises - Krases? - get loose.)
Likely if this campaign is popular, I'll weave in a larger story - probably eventually having the players travel to other planes of the Magic multiverse (Innistrad feels like one I'd be very happy to check out.) Also, while I could go the canon route and do the whole Nicol Bolas/War for the Spark story, but frankly, I think I'd have a lot of fun working in another classic Magic villain - the Phyrexians. (Really curious to see when they come back. I mean, New Phyrexia really set them up to be a new force to reckon with.)
So my goal is to try to design a campaign (likely not to start for a while) that is built to accommodate a rotating cast of characters.
I've been playing a fair amount of Adventurer's League (two tier 2 characters and a number of tier 1s) which is mostly built around single-session adventures (though I also just got back from session 4 of Descent into Avernus. We are not in the Hells yet but at least we've discovered a diabolical plot by this point.)
Taking inspiration from this, my proposal is the following:
Each player is going to roll up a level 1 character. Every character has to belong to a guild, but I'm going to say people can pick whichever they want - even if there are duplicates (play the character you want is my philosophy.) I'm going to strongly encourage people to take the guild background affiliated with their chosen guild (like Dimir Operative or Boros Legionnaire,) but if they are playing an unusual role in the guild (for example, if they're one of the few Dimir who operate openly) I'll allow people to take custom backgrounds.
Race options will be pretty open. I'm going to encourage players to play the races mentioned or premiered in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, but we'll also allow reskins of existing races (Aarakocra for Aven, Tritons for Merfolk, Tieflings for Azra, Warforged for sentient Golems, etc.) as well as a homebrewed/altered version of the Ixalan/Zendikar Vampire race from the Plane Shift articles (skewing more toward the Ixalan verison, but with Blood-Drinkers and Mind-Drinkers as sub-races.)
And every class option will be open (possibly even UA options that didn't get published if they look ok to me.)
Players will level up after each session, but at first there will be a cap at level 4. Because we won't be sure who can play each time, we're going to hold that cap until most of the players have reached it.
However! While players can try out a different character and guild while they're capped (or switch at any time of course,) those who keep playing their level 4 characters will continue to amass renown with their guild (or guilds, if they're a Dimir Operative.) Along with treasure and such, this will give them an incentive to keep playing (other than, you know, the fun of it) even if they can't level up.
Then, once we hit a certain number of people at that level, we'll level up the whole campaign. Everyone goes to level 5, and we start the process anew, now doing tier 2-appropriate content.
Story-wise, I'll be keeping it mostly episodic, particularly in the early levels. The party will be a task force organized by the Office of the Guildpact, and generally I'll build adventures in which the antagonists are probably members of guilds the players are not part of (though not all antagonists must be fiendish plotting villains - we could easily have mishaps in Izzet or Simic labs where rogue Weirds or Krasises - Krases? - get loose.)
Likely if this campaign is popular, I'll weave in a larger story - probably eventually having the players travel to other planes of the Magic multiverse (Innistrad feels like one I'd be very happy to check out.) Also, while I could go the canon route and do the whole Nicol Bolas/War for the Spark story, but frankly, I think I'd have a lot of fun working in another classic Magic villain - the Phyrexians. (Really curious to see when they come back. I mean, New Phyrexia really set them up to be a new force to reckon with.)
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Capitalism, Authoritarianism, and the Games we Love
Blizzard recently banned a competitive Hearthstone player after they spoke out against the violent crackdown on protests in Hong Kong by the Chinese government.
I would not claim to have a deep understanding of all the issues at play, but the initial spark of these protests appears to be the that China wants to institute an extradition law that would allow Hong Kong residents to be tried for acts that are considered criminal on the mainland even if they are not in Hong Kong - which would essentially gut the autonomy of the city that has existed since the "One Country Two Systems" policy was adopted after the UK returned Hong Kong to Chinese control.
The history of Hong Kong is something I feel even less qualified to exposit on than the protests, but while its position as a U.K. territory is very obviously the result of an imperialist system that has generally fallen out of favor in most of the world, the U.K.'s values of liberalism (small-l liberalism, to specify) and democracy took root there. Meanwhile, China has never had a liberal democracy, and instead, since the mid-20th Century has been under an authoritarian Communist regime.
In the past, the U.S. has defined itself as a promoter of democratic ideals, valuing freedom and civil liberties. But it has also, particularly starting with the Cold War, defined itself as a promoter of capitalism.
Capitalism is one of those words that now means very different things to different people. It could mean just the right to choose your own job and build your own business, allowing ideas to succeed or fail based on their own merits (as opposed to having a planned economy,) but there's also a version of capitalism that is preached in the West (and throughout much of the world) that considers the pursuit of profit to be the most important goal for any business person.
Through much of the Cold War, the American theory was that capitalism was intrinsically linked to liberal democracy, and so we championed it in opposition to Communism, which was both authoritarian and socialist.
Now, the irony is that Communism in China today is very good at this hard-line capitalism. There is a massive amount of money to be found in China, and it's on track to become a larger economy than the United States.
And companies stand to leave a massive amount of money on the table if they don't court China's market. But unlike in the US, where we have the first amendment, in China there is no enshrined freedom of speech. And thus, nothing bars the Chinese government legally from terminating a business' right to do business in China if someone who in some way represents that company (such as a professional e-Sports player) says something critical of the Chinese government.
So you could make the argument that Blizzard had no choice - that they stood to damage or potentially lose their business relationship with China if they did not ban this guy.
But you could also make the argument that an American company should honor American values, and that the loss of profit - even a substantial amount of profit - should be worth it if means standing up for freedom and democracy.
Perhaps Blizzard was well within their rights to do this. But we, as players, are also well within our rights to register our disappointment with our wallets. I cannot tell anyone what to do in response to Blizzard's actions. I don't even know what my own actions will be. Given the vast number of massive corporations that we now deal with on a daily basis, could we even keep track of all the ethical misdeeds that they've all committed? But also, is looking at the tangled mess that is our corporate complicity and just throwing your hands up, saying "well, what are you going to do?" just lazy? Ironically, it's harder to make a choice like this when it's not something like your grocery store or your gas station - when it's something you've opted into as opposed to a staple of modern life.
Because while Blizzard is a company that makes games in order to make money, games are a medium, like any art form, that can bring people together. I have people I've played WoW with for ten years, and I've also got characters I've lived in for over a decade (13 years at this point) that mean something to me.
It can be an embarrassing thing to feel such emotional resonance with something that was created for profit, but such is the nature of art in a capitalist society.
I would much rather simply be speculating about WoW's next expansion or whether we'll get a Diablo 4 announcement at Blizzcon than weighing the ethics of paying a company that buckled to authoritarianism in order to enjoy my video games. But I guess that's the world we live in.
Monday, October 7, 2019
PTR Spoiler-Town Post
With the 8.3 PTR both announced and brought live today, we've been getting a huge bucket load of information on Visions of N'zoth, a patch that, to me, is very exciting. Actually, to give my take on the patch, here's how I feel: I would have loved to have the heavy Old God stuff happening earlier in the expansion. Obviously, Crucible of Storms was a prelude to this, and you certainly can't go through Stormsong Valley's main quests without a serious Cosmic Horror feel to it, but I'd have gladly not had this major Alliance/Horde war (unless it is well and truly over after this expansion) if we could have made this expansion a straight-up cosmic horror expansion from the get-go.
But we've got the cool purple-and-red N'zoth aesthetic now, eyeballs and tentacles... we're looking good come 8.3.
But let's talk story spoilers. Now, before we begin, first off, there's the courtesy SPOILER WARNING. But we should also put up the PTR CAVEAT, which is that while the grand shape of the patch is surely pretty locked in, there are details here that can change. I'm still waiting on Grand Magister Rommath to be revealed as a member of Twilight's Hammer, and we're eight years past the time that showed up in Cataclysm's beta files.
But some of these elements have very serious implications for the future of WoW and some of its key characters. Also, we've got some cryptic quotes from a familiar... not really face, but familiar voice, that should get us all very excited for future speculation.
Ready?
SPOILERS AHOY (is this the last time I'll be able to say that?)
But we've got the cool purple-and-red N'zoth aesthetic now, eyeballs and tentacles... we're looking good come 8.3.
But let's talk story spoilers. Now, before we begin, first off, there's the courtesy SPOILER WARNING. But we should also put up the PTR CAVEAT, which is that while the grand shape of the patch is surely pretty locked in, there are details here that can change. I'm still waiting on Grand Magister Rommath to be revealed as a member of Twilight's Hammer, and we're eight years past the time that showed up in Cataclysm's beta files.
But some of these elements have very serious implications for the future of WoW and some of its key characters. Also, we've got some cryptic quotes from a familiar... not really face, but familiar voice, that should get us all very excited for future speculation.
Ready?
SPOILERS AHOY (is this the last time I'll be able to say that?)
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