Well, I got so caught up in recapping the Demon Hunter Starting Experience (which is really good - lots of fun, not too hard, lots of secrets to discover if you're using Spectral Sight or just observant) that I forgot to actually talk about gameplay.
While there's a good chance that Veranos, my Demon Hunter who is currently chilling in Stormwind after having fended off an invasion of Dun Morogh, is going to eventually go Vengeance as his main spec, I haven't really done much with that other than simply arrange action bars and assign talents.
So instead, we've got Havoc to talk about.
Actually, before we do that, let's talk mobility. You obviously have double-jumping and glide, which Mardum is basically designed to work well with - lots of long sloping paths that you can glide over. Both specs get these two features, which can also be used in combat to get over nasty things on the ground (which any WoW veteran will recognize as a pretty popular boss mechanic.)
All Demon Hunters will start out in the Havoc spec. It think that you unlock Vengeance at level 99 (a little over halfway into the Mardum section of the starting experience) though there's also a later quest that explicitly tells you to choose a spec, though obviously with the new system you can switch specs any time you're out of combat.
Havoc uses Fury as its main resource. You'll build up this purple bar using Demon's Bite, which gives 20-30 Fury.
Your "filler" spender, that you start off with, is Chaos Strike, which does a bunch of Chaos damage and then refunds the Fury spent on it if it crits, making crit a pretty attractive stat.
You'll eventually unlock Eye Beam and Blade Dance, which are also rotational abilities you'll want to use, though these have cool downs (Blade Dance is only something like 8 seconds reduced by haste, so you'll use it pretty often, while Eye Beam has I think a 45-second cool down, meaning it should be used whenever possible, but maybe save it if you've got some outdoor enemy on the ropes already.)
Both Eye Beam and Blade Dance hit multiple targets, giving you some AoE options. Blade Dance hits enemies in an area (I think around the Demon Hunter) while Eye Beam is a... beam attack that hits enemies in front of you - it's channeled and always crits.
You also have Fel Rush, which has two charges and sends you shooting forward, dealing damage to enemies in your path. This is a pretty good ability for both mobility and AoE damage, though like a Monk's Roll, you can easily overshoot enemies, so be sure to be quick on turning with the mouse (something that I could not do on my laptop. Oh well.)
Metamorphosis is your big cooldown. It's actually a combination attack and short-term buff. Hitting it will give you a target reticle. You'll jump into the area, dealing damage to anyone nearby and also transforming into a demon, which increases damage and transforms some of your attacks into other, more powerful attacks. This is on a standard three-minute cool down, so certainly useable on every boss in a dungeon and multiple times per raid fight.
In terms of rhythm, you will be spending a fair amount of time just alternating Demon's Bite and Chaos Strike, though the variable gain on the former and the variable cost on the latter mean you'll actually be paying more attention to your resource bar than most classes.
Blade Dance is on a quick enough cool down that you won't feel like you're missing it, though Eye Beam is on a long enough cool down that you'll sometimes find you really need that burst of damage and don't really have it available.
Chaos Nova is on a one-minute cool down, damaging and stunning nearby enemies. I'm not yet really sure whether this is meant as a rotational ability or a utility cool down. Likewise, Vengeful Retreat does damage, slows enemies, and sends you backwards, and I believe that some talent setups will get a lot of damage out of that and Fel Rush, but will require you to constantly worry about your positioning.
Much as the Brewmaster Monk really embraced the new paradigm of active mitigation, Havoc at least is really embracing the simpler rotation with more dynamic abilities. You won't need forty keybinds to play this spec, but I suspect that that doesn't mean there won't be a noticeable difference between good players and bad ones.
Cosmetically, you'll pick out the normal stuff and then tattoo style and color (separately,) horns, and your blindfold type. Thankfully all of this stuff is changeable in the Barber Shop, so if you pick out a silly looking blindfold, for example, you aren't stuck with it forever. The one thing you can't change is skin color.
You do get alternate skin colors and facial options. Some of the skins have cracks where fel energy shows through, while others give you a sort of scaly appearance. Faces include some with scars or demonic spikes just poking out of the forehead a bit.
And of course all the voice acting is different than standard Night Elves or Blood Elves - not just a modulator like for Death Knights but full on different statements (including Demon Hunter-themed jokes and flirts.)
Demon Hunters do look really cool, though I hope that after we ditch our artifact weapons post-Legion, we get more Warglaive models, because using swords or axes on this class would just seem so... wrong. (I'd love to see some unconventional Warglaives, like the druidy wooden ones from the Shando Illidan skin in Heroes of the Storm.)
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Demon Hunter First Impressions
Well, despite only having my laptop right now (though with a new SSHD that helps a lot,) I just had to start my Demon Hunter character. I played through the starting experience - I'm sure I'll take my time a bit more the second time around when I do my Horde one - and now I'm in Stormwind (well, until the World Server went down.)
One thing that's interesting is that the starting cinematic is, for the first time, not that guy (actually I think they switched voice actors after the original one died, but the new guy does a good impression) explaining your race/class to you. Instead, you begin with a first person POV shot of Illidan telling you about your mission to Mardum and then sending you through a portal while he deals with these Azerothian heroes.
I'd say about two thirds of your starting experience is on Mardum. You kill demons and get your new abilities that way (not sure if this works for Vengeance - I just went Havoc the whole way.) Eventually, you battle the Spider Queen Tyrannia on her ship, the Fel Hammer, which flies above Mardum, and head back to the Black Temple...
Only to find Maiev there with several other Wardens. She encases you in a crystal and ships you off to the Vault of the Wardens. You "several years" (nine, real-time) in stasis, until Maiev breaks you out, throws you a new set of Glaives (you actually don't get to keep the original ones. I'll have to check that for transmog) and sets you off on the path to help break out your fellow Illidari.
You're then introduced to the conflict between Altruis the Sufferer (who was actually a quest-giver in BC that sent you after the Illidari) and Kayn Sunfury. The former broke off with Illidan because he felt the Betrayer had gone a little nuts and was acting too much like an actual demon, while the latter is fiercely loyal to the master. And one's a Night Elf and the other a Blood Elf, if that makes a difference to you.
Gul'dan and Cordana manage to steal Illidan's body, which cannot be good.
You fight your way through the literal dungeon, actually putting some of the bosses back in stasis while the demons pour out of their prisons, and eventually have to choose between either Kayn or Altruis to be your second-in-command, with the other going off on their own (I went with Altruis. I like to think that my guy wants to keep himself honest, and having a lieutenant who is willing to stand up to him is good for that. We'll have to see what the long-term effects of this choice are.)
Finally, you face the Eredar leader of the assault, after which you meet up with Khadgar, who brings you to your capital and then the quests begin to sync up with what the other players experience with demons attacking the leadership of your faction.
My computer is so ancient that it's hard to get a real feel for the flow of the class, but so far I really like the aesthetic (except the helmet I currently have - you get a second set of quest rewards in the vault that have a different look, but my older one upgraded to epic, so I'll have to take a trip to the transmogrifier.)
Anyway, DEMON HUNTERS ARE LIVE!
I can't wait to start doing all the other launch event stuff, but I think a lot of that will wait until I'm back home and can use my main computer.
One thing that's interesting is that the starting cinematic is, for the first time, not that guy (actually I think they switched voice actors after the original one died, but the new guy does a good impression) explaining your race/class to you. Instead, you begin with a first person POV shot of Illidan telling you about your mission to Mardum and then sending you through a portal while he deals with these Azerothian heroes.
I'd say about two thirds of your starting experience is on Mardum. You kill demons and get your new abilities that way (not sure if this works for Vengeance - I just went Havoc the whole way.) Eventually, you battle the Spider Queen Tyrannia on her ship, the Fel Hammer, which flies above Mardum, and head back to the Black Temple...
Only to find Maiev there with several other Wardens. She encases you in a crystal and ships you off to the Vault of the Wardens. You "several years" (nine, real-time) in stasis, until Maiev breaks you out, throws you a new set of Glaives (you actually don't get to keep the original ones. I'll have to check that for transmog) and sets you off on the path to help break out your fellow Illidari.
You're then introduced to the conflict between Altruis the Sufferer (who was actually a quest-giver in BC that sent you after the Illidari) and Kayn Sunfury. The former broke off with Illidan because he felt the Betrayer had gone a little nuts and was acting too much like an actual demon, while the latter is fiercely loyal to the master. And one's a Night Elf and the other a Blood Elf, if that makes a difference to you.
Gul'dan and Cordana manage to steal Illidan's body, which cannot be good.
You fight your way through the literal dungeon, actually putting some of the bosses back in stasis while the demons pour out of their prisons, and eventually have to choose between either Kayn or Altruis to be your second-in-command, with the other going off on their own (I went with Altruis. I like to think that my guy wants to keep himself honest, and having a lieutenant who is willing to stand up to him is good for that. We'll have to see what the long-term effects of this choice are.)
Finally, you face the Eredar leader of the assault, after which you meet up with Khadgar, who brings you to your capital and then the quests begin to sync up with what the other players experience with demons attacking the leadership of your faction.
My computer is so ancient that it's hard to get a real feel for the flow of the class, but so far I really like the aesthetic (except the helmet I currently have - you get a second set of quest rewards in the vault that have a different look, but my older one upgraded to epic, so I'll have to take a trip to the transmogrifier.)
Anyway, DEMON HUNTERS ARE LIVE!
I can't wait to start doing all the other launch event stuff, but I think a lot of that will wait until I'm back home and can use my main computer.
Monday, August 8, 2016
Demon Hunters' Eve and the Staggered Release of Legion
In some ways, Legion is the opposite of Warlords of Draenor. In Warlords, we didn't get any new toon incentive - no new class or race was added (though the new character models for the old races should not be ignored as a serious improvement to the game.) It also funneled absolutely everyone into the same area at the same time - while Alliance and Horde went to opposite ends of the continent for their first full quest zones, everyone was put through a pretty bottlenecked series of quests in Tanaan Jungle - the only glimpse we got of the zone before it got super fel-corrupted.
The launch of Warlords was far from perfect - DDoS attacks (to be fair, not Blizzard's fault) made the first few hours pretty hard to play, though after the first day things got better.
So what Blizzard is doing is kind of clever. At first, the unprecedented release of Demon Hunters before the expansion itself launched seemed like a bad move - in the past, we've had people starting their Monks, Worgen, Death Knights, etc. while others decided to steam on ahead on their mains and go to the new continent, nicely dividing the players into two or three groups (three when we have a new race for each faction.)
But actually, releasing Demon Hunters tomorrow actually plays into the clever staggering that the game will be using this go around.
For one thing, we got the systems patch weeks ago, meaning that people have had time to update add ons and get used to new rotations (and pick out their best transmog set.)
Now we'll be getting the Demon Hunters and the biggest pre-launch event we've had since Cataclysm. But then it will be three more weeks before the expansion itself launches.
Not every player who intends to play Legion will have a Demon Hunter yet, though. Those who want physical copies (including the physical collector's edition, though I think there's digital version as well) will need to wait until the 30th. So not every player is going to be starting their DHs the moment the servers come back up tomorrow (I'm assuming that's when they'll be unlocked, as opposed to midnight tonight.)
But then the expansion itself is staggered in a clever way as well.
Players will have a series of quests that eventually send them off to Dalaran in its new location above the Broken Isles. From there, the player base is divided not in two, by faction, but in twelve, by class. While some of these quests will still take place in Dalaran, a lot of them shuffle people off into separate zones and instances. And shortly after starting this chain, players will get split into thirty-six different quest lines as each player pursues their own artifact weapon. Yes, there's some overlap - I know that Affliction Warlocks, Unholy Death Knights, and Balance Druids all get sent to Deadwind Pass, but that's really not too bad, having to share a zone with a twelfth of other players.
And then, of course, you get into solo scenarios.
After completing the quest chain to get your artifact weapon, it will have already been enough time for different players to be finished at different times. And after that, each player is going to choose which zone to start in, meaning that even after all the class-and-spec specific content, you're still going to have people going to different parts of the Broken Isles (and probably dividing at least some of those players between different parts of the zone depending on faction.)
This is really a pretty complex and comprehensive way to get players to spread the hell out. Sure, Dalaran will probably be Dalalaggy as people arrive, but they're sent off pretty quickly.
Obviously, anything can go wrong, and simply having so many players logged in at the same time will probably put strain on the servers regardless of how spread out things are. But I think Blizzard is trying a new and very clever plan to make the launch-day experience far better than it has been in the past.
Looking forward to it, but I'm focused more on Demon Hunters tomorrow! And my laptop has a new SSHD, so I might actually be able to do more than simply pick out the hair/face/skin color/etc. of my Demon Hunters!
The launch of Warlords was far from perfect - DDoS attacks (to be fair, not Blizzard's fault) made the first few hours pretty hard to play, though after the first day things got better.
So what Blizzard is doing is kind of clever. At first, the unprecedented release of Demon Hunters before the expansion itself launched seemed like a bad move - in the past, we've had people starting their Monks, Worgen, Death Knights, etc. while others decided to steam on ahead on their mains and go to the new continent, nicely dividing the players into two or three groups (three when we have a new race for each faction.)
But actually, releasing Demon Hunters tomorrow actually plays into the clever staggering that the game will be using this go around.
For one thing, we got the systems patch weeks ago, meaning that people have had time to update add ons and get used to new rotations (and pick out their best transmog set.)
Now we'll be getting the Demon Hunters and the biggest pre-launch event we've had since Cataclysm. But then it will be three more weeks before the expansion itself launches.
Not every player who intends to play Legion will have a Demon Hunter yet, though. Those who want physical copies (including the physical collector's edition, though I think there's digital version as well) will need to wait until the 30th. So not every player is going to be starting their DHs the moment the servers come back up tomorrow (I'm assuming that's when they'll be unlocked, as opposed to midnight tonight.)
But then the expansion itself is staggered in a clever way as well.
Players will have a series of quests that eventually send them off to Dalaran in its new location above the Broken Isles. From there, the player base is divided not in two, by faction, but in twelve, by class. While some of these quests will still take place in Dalaran, a lot of them shuffle people off into separate zones and instances. And shortly after starting this chain, players will get split into thirty-six different quest lines as each player pursues their own artifact weapon. Yes, there's some overlap - I know that Affliction Warlocks, Unholy Death Knights, and Balance Druids all get sent to Deadwind Pass, but that's really not too bad, having to share a zone with a twelfth of other players.
And then, of course, you get into solo scenarios.
After completing the quest chain to get your artifact weapon, it will have already been enough time for different players to be finished at different times. And after that, each player is going to choose which zone to start in, meaning that even after all the class-and-spec specific content, you're still going to have people going to different parts of the Broken Isles (and probably dividing at least some of those players between different parts of the zone depending on faction.)
This is really a pretty complex and comprehensive way to get players to spread the hell out. Sure, Dalaran will probably be Dalalaggy as people arrive, but they're sent off pretty quickly.
Obviously, anything can go wrong, and simply having so many players logged in at the same time will probably put strain on the servers regardless of how spread out things are. But I think Blizzard is trying a new and very clever plan to make the launch-day experience far better than it has been in the past.
Looking forward to it, but I'm focused more on Demon Hunters tomorrow! And my laptop has a new SSHD, so I might actually be able to do more than simply pick out the hair/face/skin color/etc. of my Demon Hunters!
Friday, August 5, 2016
The End of Legion
The upcoming expansion is simply called Legion, and that carries with it some serious implications. The title of WoW's first expansion, the Burning Crusade, actually referred to basically the same thing - one could make the argument that the Burning Crusade is an action while the Burning Legion is a group of demons and one Titan, but the Burning Crusade is what the Legion does.
Of course, the Burning Crusade split its focus considerably. For one thing, the headlining villain (though not the main figure on the box art - mirroring Vanilla's Dwarf/Night Elf and Orc/Tauren art, BC had a Draenei/Blood Elf box) is decidedly not a member of the Burning Legion.
Illidan's relationship with the Legion is something Blizzard has evolved and probably rewritten a few times. Illidan waged a war against the Lich King, for example, at Kil'jaeden's behest (a war he lost, which allowed Arthas to merge with Ner'zhul to become the second Lich King.) Still, Burning Crusade was largely about us fighting the Illidari - Illidan's organization of allied Blood Elves, Naga, Fel Orcs, and of course his far more elite and trusted Demon Hunter disciples - the very characters who we will be able to play starting on August 9th (I'm really eager to take my Demon Hunter through Black Temple and see if there's any special dialogue there - theoretically everything inside should be friendly.)
We did fight the Burning Legion ultimately in the Burning Crusade, especially as it became clear that Kael'thas and his faction had abandoned Illidan in favor of the Legion (a move many were upset about, given that Kael'thas was pretty much a good guy in Warcraft III, his alliance with Illidan a pretty understandable move to survive.) Our ultimate showdown with the Legion was at Sunwell Plateau. This fight ended favorably, but there was absolutely no sense that there was any finality to it - Kil'jaeden was explicitly not dead. We had merely slammed the door in his face. (Meanwhile, we've killed Archimonde twice and both times it's been kind of unclear whether he's actually dead or not. My money is on no, even if Mythic raiders killed him in the Twisting Nether, which is supposed to mean perma-death for demons.)
With an expansion called Legion, where it has been made explicitly clear that we're facing down the Burning Legion's biggest invasion of Azeroth ever, though, I think Blizzard needs to actually make our eventual victory (and I'm assuming it's a victory, because there's going to be a final boss for us to beat) count for something. We can't simply "close the portal" again, because ultimately how would that differ from what we did in the end of Burning Crusade.
What might we actually accomplish by the end of this expansion?
We already know that we'll have killed Gul'dan B - he's the boss of the first major raid. The Emerald Nightmare is also probably going to be considered "dealt with," because even though Xavius isn't the root cause of the Nightmare, I really can't imagine going back in after a raid literally called the Emerald Nightmare. (I'm still really curious about the relationship between the Old Gods, the Nightmare, and the Legion.)
I think that bare minimum, we have to kill Kil'jaeden permanently. We know he's involved in this invasion and the whole "leaving him alive after BC" move was totally to set up a final confrontation with him like this. Archimonde might have a presence if he's still alive, though I kind of hope that when we killed him on Draenor, that counted to actually kill him permanently.
The big question is Sargeras.
Sargeras is literally the size of a planet, so I don't really see him being a raid boss in the conventional sense (unless we all become super-sized in some kind of cosmic arena.) Still, the Tomb of Sargeras, which I am 90% sure will be the expansion's final raid (not saying that the end of the raid will still be on Azeroth, mind you) is the resting place of Sargeras' avatar, which, while huge, is more in keeping with raid bosses we've seen in the past. I could see us fighting Sargeras within an avatar like this.
The question then is whether Blizzard is willing to pull the trigger on actually killing Sargeras off.
Sargeras has been the big bad of Warcraft since the beginning. It's only within very recent periods that we've discovered there might be anything truly more powerful and villainous than he is. The shapeless Void Lords are something we'll probably never even see, because of how final their position within the canon is (plus there was that comic suggesting Anduin's going to fight them in like seventy years, at which point I will literally be one hundred years old.)
However, eliminating Sargeras might not be the total collapse of the Warcraft story that some might fear.
First off, it doesn't necessarily mean the end of Demons as a threat. Demons existed before Sargeras created the Legion, and without their master, they might start doing their own thing.
Then you have the Old Gods - we've fought two of them in person, but it seems pretty evident that neither C'thun nor Yogg-Saron are actually dead. Y'Shaarj is (and I believe we cut off the source of the Sha with some unwitting help from Garrosh, even if that doesn't mean that the remaining Sha essence in Pandaria is totally gone.) N'Zoth we haven't even seen (except as a Hearthstone card.)
The Old Gods could absolutely headline an expansion - you could easily have N'zoth do one on his own (the other two surviving OGs I think would need to be presented as part of a package, as we've already faced them.) The Dark Below as a name isn't going to happen, but I think an underground expansion could be really awesome.
I keep wondering about Azshara - it'd be a pretty huge step down after Legion to merely deal with the Queen of the Naga. One could imagine her as a middle-tier boss in a N'zoth expansion, but on the other hand, it might be necessary to lower the stakes significantly after Legion so that things don't go totally insane.
And of course, there's always the possibility of new villains popping up. Garrosh was never mentioned before Burning Crusade, but his campaign to "make the Horde great again" actually made him one of the most nuanced villains we've seen in the game (even if it was infuriating to see the Horde falling into barbarism when you were playing as one of its heroes.)
I'm always going to hold out some hope that the Infinite Dragonflight gets a place in the spotlight, but I also know that that's more of a pet issue and not necessarily on Blizzard's priority list.
The other big question I have about the end of Legion is the fate of Illidan.
To my knowledge, Illidan is going to have to wait a while to actually be resurrected. I think that Gul'dan has his body, so perhaps we'll recover it following the Nighthold Raid, but then what?
Illidan is apparently going to be instrumental in the Naaru's plan to defeat the Legion (which now makes me wonder why they were organizing us to fight him,) and so I could totally see him playing a Thrall/Tirion Fordring role in the final boss fight, but then what?
Does he survive to lead the Illidari once again? Does he reconcile with Malfurion? Does he die to save us all? Can he even die, now that he's demonic enough to be bound to the twisting nether?
We'll have to see how the story develops as the expansion goes on.
Of course, the Burning Crusade split its focus considerably. For one thing, the headlining villain (though not the main figure on the box art - mirroring Vanilla's Dwarf/Night Elf and Orc/Tauren art, BC had a Draenei/Blood Elf box) is decidedly not a member of the Burning Legion.
Illidan's relationship with the Legion is something Blizzard has evolved and probably rewritten a few times. Illidan waged a war against the Lich King, for example, at Kil'jaeden's behest (a war he lost, which allowed Arthas to merge with Ner'zhul to become the second Lich King.) Still, Burning Crusade was largely about us fighting the Illidari - Illidan's organization of allied Blood Elves, Naga, Fel Orcs, and of course his far more elite and trusted Demon Hunter disciples - the very characters who we will be able to play starting on August 9th (I'm really eager to take my Demon Hunter through Black Temple and see if there's any special dialogue there - theoretically everything inside should be friendly.)
We did fight the Burning Legion ultimately in the Burning Crusade, especially as it became clear that Kael'thas and his faction had abandoned Illidan in favor of the Legion (a move many were upset about, given that Kael'thas was pretty much a good guy in Warcraft III, his alliance with Illidan a pretty understandable move to survive.) Our ultimate showdown with the Legion was at Sunwell Plateau. This fight ended favorably, but there was absolutely no sense that there was any finality to it - Kil'jaeden was explicitly not dead. We had merely slammed the door in his face. (Meanwhile, we've killed Archimonde twice and both times it's been kind of unclear whether he's actually dead or not. My money is on no, even if Mythic raiders killed him in the Twisting Nether, which is supposed to mean perma-death for demons.)
With an expansion called Legion, where it has been made explicitly clear that we're facing down the Burning Legion's biggest invasion of Azeroth ever, though, I think Blizzard needs to actually make our eventual victory (and I'm assuming it's a victory, because there's going to be a final boss for us to beat) count for something. We can't simply "close the portal" again, because ultimately how would that differ from what we did in the end of Burning Crusade.
What might we actually accomplish by the end of this expansion?
We already know that we'll have killed Gul'dan B - he's the boss of the first major raid. The Emerald Nightmare is also probably going to be considered "dealt with," because even though Xavius isn't the root cause of the Nightmare, I really can't imagine going back in after a raid literally called the Emerald Nightmare. (I'm still really curious about the relationship between the Old Gods, the Nightmare, and the Legion.)
I think that bare minimum, we have to kill Kil'jaeden permanently. We know he's involved in this invasion and the whole "leaving him alive after BC" move was totally to set up a final confrontation with him like this. Archimonde might have a presence if he's still alive, though I kind of hope that when we killed him on Draenor, that counted to actually kill him permanently.
The big question is Sargeras.
Sargeras is literally the size of a planet, so I don't really see him being a raid boss in the conventional sense (unless we all become super-sized in some kind of cosmic arena.) Still, the Tomb of Sargeras, which I am 90% sure will be the expansion's final raid (not saying that the end of the raid will still be on Azeroth, mind you) is the resting place of Sargeras' avatar, which, while huge, is more in keeping with raid bosses we've seen in the past. I could see us fighting Sargeras within an avatar like this.
The question then is whether Blizzard is willing to pull the trigger on actually killing Sargeras off.
Sargeras has been the big bad of Warcraft since the beginning. It's only within very recent periods that we've discovered there might be anything truly more powerful and villainous than he is. The shapeless Void Lords are something we'll probably never even see, because of how final their position within the canon is (plus there was that comic suggesting Anduin's going to fight them in like seventy years, at which point I will literally be one hundred years old.)
However, eliminating Sargeras might not be the total collapse of the Warcraft story that some might fear.
First off, it doesn't necessarily mean the end of Demons as a threat. Demons existed before Sargeras created the Legion, and without their master, they might start doing their own thing.
Then you have the Old Gods - we've fought two of them in person, but it seems pretty evident that neither C'thun nor Yogg-Saron are actually dead. Y'Shaarj is (and I believe we cut off the source of the Sha with some unwitting help from Garrosh, even if that doesn't mean that the remaining Sha essence in Pandaria is totally gone.) N'Zoth we haven't even seen (except as a Hearthstone card.)
The Old Gods could absolutely headline an expansion - you could easily have N'zoth do one on his own (the other two surviving OGs I think would need to be presented as part of a package, as we've already faced them.) The Dark Below as a name isn't going to happen, but I think an underground expansion could be really awesome.
I keep wondering about Azshara - it'd be a pretty huge step down after Legion to merely deal with the Queen of the Naga. One could imagine her as a middle-tier boss in a N'zoth expansion, but on the other hand, it might be necessary to lower the stakes significantly after Legion so that things don't go totally insane.
And of course, there's always the possibility of new villains popping up. Garrosh was never mentioned before Burning Crusade, but his campaign to "make the Horde great again" actually made him one of the most nuanced villains we've seen in the game (even if it was infuriating to see the Horde falling into barbarism when you were playing as one of its heroes.)
I'm always going to hold out some hope that the Infinite Dragonflight gets a place in the spotlight, but I also know that that's more of a pet issue and not necessarily on Blizzard's priority list.
The other big question I have about the end of Legion is the fate of Illidan.
To my knowledge, Illidan is going to have to wait a while to actually be resurrected. I think that Gul'dan has his body, so perhaps we'll recover it following the Nighthold Raid, but then what?
Illidan is apparently going to be instrumental in the Naaru's plan to defeat the Legion (which now makes me wonder why they were organizing us to fight him,) and so I could totally see him playing a Thrall/Tirion Fordring role in the final boss fight, but then what?
Does he survive to lead the Illidari once again? Does he reconcile with Malfurion? Does he die to save us all? Can he even die, now that he's demonic enough to be bound to the twisting nether?
We'll have to see how the story develops as the expansion goes on.
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
One Week Until Demon Hunters
I don't typically talk about lore from a "down on the ground" perspective. I generally try to focus on broader concerns and major characters - the nature of the Titans, the motivations of the Infinite Dragonflight, the interaction between Fel magic and the Old Gods. But with a second hero class, I thought I'd talk a little bit about our upcoming Demon Hunter characters.
Personally, I'm going to be confined to my laptop the day that the class comes out, and I might simply wait until I get back from the airport, probably jet lagged and feeling like crap, to create my own DH (actually, DHs, as I fully plan on making a Horde Illidari in addition to the Alliance one.)
Mechanically, hero class has come to mean a class that starts at a higher level and for that reason has its own unique starting experience. For almost eight years, Death Knights have been the only hero class, but we're getting a second one next week.
But flavorfully, this starting experience actually emphasizes the way that members of a hero class are really defined by that class. Becoming a Warlock, Paladin, or Hunter is a life choice, to be sure. But ultimately all of the non-hero classes are essentially a set of skills. It might be very difficult for a lifelong Warlock to seek redemption and wield the Light as a Paladin, but it's not impossible.
Likewise, members of the non-hero classes probably relate perfectly well to those of other classes. A dwarf Hunter and a dwarf Warrior could easily have grown up together, even served together in the name of King Magni back in the day. That Hunter would probably feel a much stronger connection to her warrior friend than some Night Elf Sentinel who uses the same techniques she does. Granted, she might get to know and respect that Sentinel after the Alliance brought the Night Elves into the fold, but there is not, inherently, that sense of kinship there.
For hero classes, though?
I think the clearest example is the friendship between Thassarian and Koltira. Now, Thassarian is actually the guy who killed Koltira in the first place, but as members of the Scourge, they actually managed to set aside the old racial distrust (though at the time Thassarian killed Koltira, humans and High Elves were actually allies.) As a Death Knight, one really feels more attached to Acherus and the Ebon Blade than one's original homeland. Your fellow Knights know the cruel addiction you suffer while your countrymen mostly treat you with distrust and disdain.
This effect is deepened with Demon Hunters. The Lich King was pretty equal-opportunity in creating his Death Knights - the Pandaren are the only race that can't be DKs and that's just because Blizzard couldn't figure out a decent workaround for the timeline the way they had for Worgen and Goblins. The Demon Hunters are very specifically elves - Night Elves for the Alliance and Blood Elves for the Horde.
So you sort of have the racial unity built in to the class identity, unless they eventually (in a later expansion, if ever) loosen the restrictions. The Blood Elves are of course distant cousins (or, given the longevity of the Night Elves, nieces and nephews) of the Night Elves.
But at the same time the history experienced by the Illidari is a very different one than the other playable elves.
The first thing to consider is that everything from the end of the Black Temple Raid to the beginning of Legion - so Sunwell Plateau, all of Wrath, the Cataclysm, the war between the Alliance and Horde, and the whole Draenor situation - all of those events are things that your Demon Hunter has totally missed. They'll be stepping into a world that they left under threat of the Scourge and in which Deathwing was a lurking threat and find one that is completely transformed.
But that's not even all of it.
Illidan was freed during the Third War. We don't know for a fact when he first started training apprentices - one would assume that other Demon Hunters from that era would have been killed or imprisoned along with him, so we can probably assume that notable Demon Hunters like Feronas Sindweller, Altruis the Sufferer, and Loramus Thalipedes were probably trained in the period following the Third War, when Illidan was banished from northern Kalimdor but no longer imprisoned.
Given that the Night Elves only joined the Alliance in the period following the Third War and Illidan's banishment, that means that any Night Elf Demon Hunter would only be joining the Alliance now - they last experienced life in their society during the highly bifurcated period before the war. If your DH is a woman, she was probably a Sentinel or a Priestess of the Moon (or possibly a Warden who became intrigued with her most high-profile prisoner's techniques,) and if you have a male character, he was probably a druid sleeping in the barrows (though there are some non-druid male Night Elves like Jarod Shadowsong.)
Blood Elf Demon Hunters would have joined Illidan when Kael'thas went to Outland, escaping from the oppression of Garrithos (the human commander of the remnant of Lordaeron's forces.) So when they left Azeroth, they were seeking an escape from the Scourge and being used as cannon fodder by the Alliance. Illidan had provided the Blood Elves with a source of magic that sated their addiction following the corruption of the Sunwell.
The Illidari were most likely well aware that Kael'thas had betrayed them. Most of the Blood Elves who came to Outland followed him in his disastrous alliance with the Burning Legion. Indeed, given the Havoc Demon Hunter artifact quests, it looks like some of the Demon Hunters even followed him. But presumably your loyalty was to Illidan - your mentor and trainer who had provided salvation to your people.
Returning to Azeroth, you'd be aware that your people back home joined the Horde, though you've never lived under the Horde personally. The last time you saw your homeland, it had been utterly devastated by the Scourge, and so finding out that the Lich King had been defeated and that the Sunwell had been reignited with Holy magic might make you seriously question whether you had been right to follow Kael'thas in the first place.
Something that is apparently in the Illidan novel actually explains more about the nature of Demon Hunters, though, and this is where it starts to become clear that DHs have undergone an experience that is just as transformative and irreversible as that of Death Knights.
Illidan's recruits into the Demon Hunter class are all people who have lost a loved one or loved ones to a demon. Ironically, Illidan doesn't really fit this description, but it's part of his recruitment requirements. Probably the greatest trial in training to be a Demon Hunter is when the Demon Hunter must summon the demon who killed his or her loved one. The novice must slay the demon and then consume its heart, creating a deep connection between the demon and the hunter. The demon becomes a part of the Demon Hunter, a constant reminder of that painful loss but also a source of incredible power. The Demon Hunter's discipline is all that prevents the demonic presence within from taking over.
In a sense, a Demon Hunter has the opposite problem of a Death Knight. A Death Knight is numb, feeling only an endless hunger to inflict pain. A Demon Hunter is constantly assaulted with pain and rage, feeling it all, and indeed seeing all the demonic evil in the universe. Demon Hunters apparently do not gouge out their eyes as some careful ritual - it's more of a side-effect of being able to see through the eyes of the demon they have imprisoned within themselves.
Demon Hunters are transformed into half-demons themselves - their souls are bound to the Twisting Nether, like that of a demon, which allows them to return to life (granted, in-game they'll probably find Spirit Healers - which we now know are benevolent rogue Val'kyr - in the Shadowlands - which I theorize is where we go when we're in ghost form.) In a sense, they aren't really Night Elves or Blood Elves anymore.
But despite their demonic nature - or more likely, because of it - they are fully committed to fighting against the Burning Legion and the other evils that threaten Azeroth. Unlike Death Knights, they chose this path willingly, but either way, they have made a commitment that even death will not release them from.
Personally, I'm going to be confined to my laptop the day that the class comes out, and I might simply wait until I get back from the airport, probably jet lagged and feeling like crap, to create my own DH (actually, DHs, as I fully plan on making a Horde Illidari in addition to the Alliance one.)
Mechanically, hero class has come to mean a class that starts at a higher level and for that reason has its own unique starting experience. For almost eight years, Death Knights have been the only hero class, but we're getting a second one next week.
But flavorfully, this starting experience actually emphasizes the way that members of a hero class are really defined by that class. Becoming a Warlock, Paladin, or Hunter is a life choice, to be sure. But ultimately all of the non-hero classes are essentially a set of skills. It might be very difficult for a lifelong Warlock to seek redemption and wield the Light as a Paladin, but it's not impossible.
Likewise, members of the non-hero classes probably relate perfectly well to those of other classes. A dwarf Hunter and a dwarf Warrior could easily have grown up together, even served together in the name of King Magni back in the day. That Hunter would probably feel a much stronger connection to her warrior friend than some Night Elf Sentinel who uses the same techniques she does. Granted, she might get to know and respect that Sentinel after the Alliance brought the Night Elves into the fold, but there is not, inherently, that sense of kinship there.
For hero classes, though?
I think the clearest example is the friendship between Thassarian and Koltira. Now, Thassarian is actually the guy who killed Koltira in the first place, but as members of the Scourge, they actually managed to set aside the old racial distrust (though at the time Thassarian killed Koltira, humans and High Elves were actually allies.) As a Death Knight, one really feels more attached to Acherus and the Ebon Blade than one's original homeland. Your fellow Knights know the cruel addiction you suffer while your countrymen mostly treat you with distrust and disdain.
This effect is deepened with Demon Hunters. The Lich King was pretty equal-opportunity in creating his Death Knights - the Pandaren are the only race that can't be DKs and that's just because Blizzard couldn't figure out a decent workaround for the timeline the way they had for Worgen and Goblins. The Demon Hunters are very specifically elves - Night Elves for the Alliance and Blood Elves for the Horde.
So you sort of have the racial unity built in to the class identity, unless they eventually (in a later expansion, if ever) loosen the restrictions. The Blood Elves are of course distant cousins (or, given the longevity of the Night Elves, nieces and nephews) of the Night Elves.
But at the same time the history experienced by the Illidari is a very different one than the other playable elves.
The first thing to consider is that everything from the end of the Black Temple Raid to the beginning of Legion - so Sunwell Plateau, all of Wrath, the Cataclysm, the war between the Alliance and Horde, and the whole Draenor situation - all of those events are things that your Demon Hunter has totally missed. They'll be stepping into a world that they left under threat of the Scourge and in which Deathwing was a lurking threat and find one that is completely transformed.
But that's not even all of it.
Illidan was freed during the Third War. We don't know for a fact when he first started training apprentices - one would assume that other Demon Hunters from that era would have been killed or imprisoned along with him, so we can probably assume that notable Demon Hunters like Feronas Sindweller, Altruis the Sufferer, and Loramus Thalipedes were probably trained in the period following the Third War, when Illidan was banished from northern Kalimdor but no longer imprisoned.
Given that the Night Elves only joined the Alliance in the period following the Third War and Illidan's banishment, that means that any Night Elf Demon Hunter would only be joining the Alliance now - they last experienced life in their society during the highly bifurcated period before the war. If your DH is a woman, she was probably a Sentinel or a Priestess of the Moon (or possibly a Warden who became intrigued with her most high-profile prisoner's techniques,) and if you have a male character, he was probably a druid sleeping in the barrows (though there are some non-druid male Night Elves like Jarod Shadowsong.)
Blood Elf Demon Hunters would have joined Illidan when Kael'thas went to Outland, escaping from the oppression of Garrithos (the human commander of the remnant of Lordaeron's forces.) So when they left Azeroth, they were seeking an escape from the Scourge and being used as cannon fodder by the Alliance. Illidan had provided the Blood Elves with a source of magic that sated their addiction following the corruption of the Sunwell.
The Illidari were most likely well aware that Kael'thas had betrayed them. Most of the Blood Elves who came to Outland followed him in his disastrous alliance with the Burning Legion. Indeed, given the Havoc Demon Hunter artifact quests, it looks like some of the Demon Hunters even followed him. But presumably your loyalty was to Illidan - your mentor and trainer who had provided salvation to your people.
Returning to Azeroth, you'd be aware that your people back home joined the Horde, though you've never lived under the Horde personally. The last time you saw your homeland, it had been utterly devastated by the Scourge, and so finding out that the Lich King had been defeated and that the Sunwell had been reignited with Holy magic might make you seriously question whether you had been right to follow Kael'thas in the first place.
Something that is apparently in the Illidan novel actually explains more about the nature of Demon Hunters, though, and this is where it starts to become clear that DHs have undergone an experience that is just as transformative and irreversible as that of Death Knights.
Illidan's recruits into the Demon Hunter class are all people who have lost a loved one or loved ones to a demon. Ironically, Illidan doesn't really fit this description, but it's part of his recruitment requirements. Probably the greatest trial in training to be a Demon Hunter is when the Demon Hunter must summon the demon who killed his or her loved one. The novice must slay the demon and then consume its heart, creating a deep connection between the demon and the hunter. The demon becomes a part of the Demon Hunter, a constant reminder of that painful loss but also a source of incredible power. The Demon Hunter's discipline is all that prevents the demonic presence within from taking over.
In a sense, a Demon Hunter has the opposite problem of a Death Knight. A Death Knight is numb, feeling only an endless hunger to inflict pain. A Demon Hunter is constantly assaulted with pain and rage, feeling it all, and indeed seeing all the demonic evil in the universe. Demon Hunters apparently do not gouge out their eyes as some careful ritual - it's more of a side-effect of being able to see through the eyes of the demon they have imprisoned within themselves.
Demon Hunters are transformed into half-demons themselves - their souls are bound to the Twisting Nether, like that of a demon, which allows them to return to life (granted, in-game they'll probably find Spirit Healers - which we now know are benevolent rogue Val'kyr - in the Shadowlands - which I theorize is where we go when we're in ghost form.) In a sense, they aren't really Night Elves or Blood Elves anymore.
But despite their demonic nature - or more likely, because of it - they are fully committed to fighting against the Burning Legion and the other evils that threaten Azeroth. Unlike Death Knights, they chose this path willingly, but either way, they have made a commitment that even death will not release them from.
Saturday, July 30, 2016
Scaling Zones and the Future of 1-110 and Beyond
One of the features I'm really excited about in Legion is that we'll be able to choose the order of zones we level up in from 100-110. While I previously though that Suramar would be a level 108-110 zone, it appears that you won't even start questing there until hitting the level cap - and if it's really a questing zone with a full story that just expects you to be at that cap, I'm also pretty happy about that (the last time we had real outdoor solo questing designed for people at the level cap was probably Cataclysm.)
But this zone scaling feature could be a huge deal. For one thing, assuming it works (and I'd guess that was what that whole Beta test was for,) it should spread players out across the continent in the early parts of the expansion. With people heading off in different directions for their artifact quests, their class hall quests, and then choosing their own paths to level, I think we're going to see the exact opposite of the bottlenecking effect that the Tanaan Jungle intro had on Warlords of Draenor (that said, you can still expect DDOS attacks from trolls and a massive number of players logging in, so don't be shocked if it's still messy the first night. At least we'll already have our Demon Hunters!)
Let's take a look at the bigger picture though: assuming this feature works well, we're likely to see it in expansions going forward. The question, then, is if it could be applied retroactively.
Those of us who have been playing for a long time (ten years this fall for me) don't really need to level up new characters. Even if you aren't as big of an altoholic as I am (name of the blog,) if you're a WoW veteran, you've probably leveled up the classes you're actually interested in playing by now, and at worst, they're sitting at 85 or something, with only a few expansions' worth of questing needed to get caught up.
Add on to that the fact that Blizzard is giving us a level boost with each expansion and you get the distinct impression that Blizzard doesn't really want to worry too much about the older parts of the game. I highly doubt we'll ever see another Cataclysm-style revamp of the old world because, well, now they just let us skip it. And with Warlords and Legion, you'll be able to get a character to 90 and two to 100 without doing all that much in game (one of your two 100s will be a Demon Hunter.) So the big caveat here is that Blizzard's current strategy is more about sweeping the level 1-100 game under the rug rather than making it easier to quest through it.
But if there is a shift in philosophy (plenty of players want more than three characters,) this zone-scaling could really make leveling up a whole new experience.
Being able to go from Ashenvale directly to Felwood makes perfect sense geographically, and with this technology, you could do that easily. It would also allow you to differentiate zones that are currently the same level range. Let's say you want to do Valley of the Four Winds and follow it with Krasarang Wilds. Today, that would mean doing a bunch of quests that were falling behind on their rewards and getting a bunch of gear that is no better than what you've already got, but with a zone-scaling system, you could get through a big chunk of your high 80s that way.
Or, you could use this scaling system to change when you go to the various expansions' areas. Granted, this would screw up your timeline even more than doing zones in any order (though that would also happen with simple zone-to-zone choices,) but maybe when you hit level 58 - or hell, 40 - you decide you'd like to go to Pandaria, then bounce back to Northrend, take a brief visit to Outland, and then go to Draenor before dealing with Twilight's Hammer in the Cataclysm zones.
Given that the constant shrinking of XP requirements to level with each expansion, these days you often get a third of the way through a zone and start to feel that you're out leveling it. I think even when Cataclysm had just come out I couldn't get through Darkshore without some of the quests in my log going full grey.
Zone scaling would allow you to spend as much time as you want in any given zone and pursue the story. You might hit level 40 before you get out of Ashenvale, but that's fine if you're just a Night Elf who is very passionate about defending your home territory.
I do think some restrictions would be important. It's already weird enough for me that you can do Eastern Plaguelands before Badlands now (for those who started playing post-cataclysm, Badlands used to open up around level 35 whereas Eastern Plaguelands was an endgame zone that you didn't want to go to until about 55 and would have quests there well after you hit the original level cap of 60.) It would be pretty absurd for you to fight against the entire Dark Horde in Burning Steppes and then start worrying about Murlocs in Elwynn Forest.
It might even be important to restrict expansions to the level ranges they originally had - you'll spend your 60s in Outland, for example, even if you get to do Nagrand before you do Zangarmarsh.
Cool as this sounds, I suspect that the level-scaling tech is probably more likely to be used for future expansions. Most of us players don't really know what it's like, though I'm given to understand that most people who have played in the Beta say they sort of forget that it's a feature, which I think is a ringing endorsement.
But this zone scaling feature could be a huge deal. For one thing, assuming it works (and I'd guess that was what that whole Beta test was for,) it should spread players out across the continent in the early parts of the expansion. With people heading off in different directions for their artifact quests, their class hall quests, and then choosing their own paths to level, I think we're going to see the exact opposite of the bottlenecking effect that the Tanaan Jungle intro had on Warlords of Draenor (that said, you can still expect DDOS attacks from trolls and a massive number of players logging in, so don't be shocked if it's still messy the first night. At least we'll already have our Demon Hunters!)
Let's take a look at the bigger picture though: assuming this feature works well, we're likely to see it in expansions going forward. The question, then, is if it could be applied retroactively.
Those of us who have been playing for a long time (ten years this fall for me) don't really need to level up new characters. Even if you aren't as big of an altoholic as I am (name of the blog,) if you're a WoW veteran, you've probably leveled up the classes you're actually interested in playing by now, and at worst, they're sitting at 85 or something, with only a few expansions' worth of questing needed to get caught up.
Add on to that the fact that Blizzard is giving us a level boost with each expansion and you get the distinct impression that Blizzard doesn't really want to worry too much about the older parts of the game. I highly doubt we'll ever see another Cataclysm-style revamp of the old world because, well, now they just let us skip it. And with Warlords and Legion, you'll be able to get a character to 90 and two to 100 without doing all that much in game (one of your two 100s will be a Demon Hunter.) So the big caveat here is that Blizzard's current strategy is more about sweeping the level 1-100 game under the rug rather than making it easier to quest through it.
But if there is a shift in philosophy (plenty of players want more than three characters,) this zone-scaling could really make leveling up a whole new experience.
Being able to go from Ashenvale directly to Felwood makes perfect sense geographically, and with this technology, you could do that easily. It would also allow you to differentiate zones that are currently the same level range. Let's say you want to do Valley of the Four Winds and follow it with Krasarang Wilds. Today, that would mean doing a bunch of quests that were falling behind on their rewards and getting a bunch of gear that is no better than what you've already got, but with a zone-scaling system, you could get through a big chunk of your high 80s that way.
Or, you could use this scaling system to change when you go to the various expansions' areas. Granted, this would screw up your timeline even more than doing zones in any order (though that would also happen with simple zone-to-zone choices,) but maybe when you hit level 58 - or hell, 40 - you decide you'd like to go to Pandaria, then bounce back to Northrend, take a brief visit to Outland, and then go to Draenor before dealing with Twilight's Hammer in the Cataclysm zones.
Given that the constant shrinking of XP requirements to level with each expansion, these days you often get a third of the way through a zone and start to feel that you're out leveling it. I think even when Cataclysm had just come out I couldn't get through Darkshore without some of the quests in my log going full grey.
Zone scaling would allow you to spend as much time as you want in any given zone and pursue the story. You might hit level 40 before you get out of Ashenvale, but that's fine if you're just a Night Elf who is very passionate about defending your home territory.
I do think some restrictions would be important. It's already weird enough for me that you can do Eastern Plaguelands before Badlands now (for those who started playing post-cataclysm, Badlands used to open up around level 35 whereas Eastern Plaguelands was an endgame zone that you didn't want to go to until about 55 and would have quests there well after you hit the original level cap of 60.) It would be pretty absurd for you to fight against the entire Dark Horde in Burning Steppes and then start worrying about Murlocs in Elwynn Forest.
It might even be important to restrict expansions to the level ranges they originally had - you'll spend your 60s in Outland, for example, even if you get to do Nagrand before you do Zangarmarsh.
Cool as this sounds, I suspect that the level-scaling tech is probably more likely to be used for future expansions. Most of us players don't really know what it's like, though I'm given to understand that most people who have played in the Beta say they sort of forget that it's a feature, which I think is a ringing endorsement.
Friday, July 29, 2016
The Next New Toon Incentive
As soon as Death Knights were announced for Wrath of the Lich King in 2007, speculation began on when we would get Demon Hunters as a playable class. Before Death Knights, we had gone three years (and would go a fourth) with only the original nine classes in World of Warcraft. Death Knights opened the way for new classes in WoW, but historically, they've only come every other expansion, meaning that even though there was only one class to come between Death Knights and Demon Hunters, the time difference is a whole eight years.
But of course, Monks were also a pretty worthy addition to the game, and while I don't think they've ever met the popularity of the DK or the other vanilla classes, there are certainly plenty of people who main as Monks.
Almost every expansion has created what I call the "New Toon Incentive:" a reason to create a new character. I've been playing most of the characters who I spend the most time on since vanilla - my Paladin, Hunter, Druid, Warlock, Shaman, and Rogue - the ones who are the "class captains" amongst my alts, are all characters I created in the fall of 2006 before even Burning Crusade came out.
Historically, we've gotten new races and new classes in order to get people to try something new. Back in the days before a paid race change, if you wanted to create a Blood Elf as your new main, you had to play that character from level 1 (or 55 if it was a Death Knight.) And of course, there have never been paid class changes (and probably never will be,) so at least during Mists, you really had to level up your Monk from the start.
The character boost in Warlords of Draenor was almost an anti-new character system - it took a brand new character and caught it up to the point where it wasn't at a serious disadvantage at the start of the new expansion, but it did encourage some (those who didn't already have every class at 90 - I still haven't used my Warlords boost) to try something new.
The fact that Demon Hunters automatically get to level 100 after their starting experience also sort of negates their "newness" as characters, but given that it's a brand new class with its own mechanics, and that if they didn't it would be the default move to simply use one's Legion boost on one's Demon Hunter, I can forgive that.
We are of course in an era with Timewalking Dungeons, and I hope one day we'll get Timewalking Raids as well (probably make that a pre-made group kind of activity,) so even though Demon Hunters will be skipping twelve years of WoW content, they'll be able to go back and experience some of it at the appropriate power level.
Anyway, a question emerges, which is what the next New Toon Incentive (NTI) will be.
Warlords of Draenor did not bring a new race or a new class, but that was I think largely because Mists of Pandaria brought both. I've argued many times that a new race is far easier to introduce into the game, though their story might take a back seat.
I actually think Warlords would have been a fantastic opportunity to introduce playable Ogres for the Horde and Arrakoa for the Alliance. Given how recently we've been to Draenor and honestly how much Blizzard seems ready to move on from the problems of the expansion, I don't really expect to see much focus on Outland or Draenor any time soon, which definitely affects Arrakoa, though Ogres have enough of a presence on Azeroth that I don't think we need to go back there to bring them on board.
I think Naga could make for a really interesting playable race, but there are definitely some questions about their anatomy - like how pants or boots would work on a Naga character, or how they would ride on mounts. One could imagine a sort of "devolved" Naga that retains more of its Night Elf anatomy - still being serpentine, but retaining legs. Still, if they're planning that, planting the seeds for it in Azsuna during Legion would be the smart time to do so (though I do know there are some massive Naga hulks that seem to have more crocodilian legs than serpentine tails.) The racial abilities write themselves - like Undead, they'd have underwater breathing, but they'd also get a speed boost while swimming.
One would also have to deal with whether they are fully corrupted by the Old Gods like the Black Dragonflight (before Wrathion's purge, after which the question is "what Black Dragonflight?") or if they were simply transformed by them like with the Curse of Flesh. Blizzard could easily retcon this, as the history is pretty vague to begin with.
You could also really expand on the lore of Murlocs, Troggs, Gnolls, Kobolds, or other stock hostile creatures to give them enough of a culture to play them, but that might be a little too silly.
Ethereals are another popular choice for playable race, and I actually think you could do fun things with using their bandages as a substitute for skin and facial features.
Of course, there is still the option to add new classes to the game. Here I think you have to be really careful. Death Knights and Monks were able to carve out some pretty distinct niches when they were introduced, but Demon Hunters absolutely stepped on the toes of Warlocks, requiring a serious redesign of the Demonology specialization (even though I loved the old Demo, I actually really like the new one too, so I'm not too upset - I just wish I had some ability affected by my Codex of Xerrath.) I will always be happy to see a new class, but it's going to be tricky to find a new archetype.
One archetype that is often put forth is the Tinker - a class that uses devices and technology to fight and potentially heal or tank.
The good news is that this archetype could fit pretty well in a Mail armor slot - having jangly metal armor sounds perfect for a Tinker. It would also be very different than any existing class, though it would definitely step a bit on the toes of the Engineering Profession. Is that the end of the world? I don't know.
Beyond the Tinker, I can't really think of much else. A Barbarian would be too similar to a Warrior. A Necromancer would be the blend of a Death Knight and a Warlock (actually, it would make total sense for Necromancer to be a Warlock spec that works almost exactly like Demonology does now, only summoning undead instead of demons.) D&D has Sorcerers as a distinct class from a Wizard, but both are pretty darn close to the Mage archetype.
Thankfully, Blizzard has four years before anyone expects a new class to come out, and at this point I don't think anyone would blame them too much for choosing not to add more to the ranks. I was holding out for a very long time for Demon Hunters, and now that we've got them, I'm pretty satisfied with the class selection in WoW. (Though I'd be really into a Tinker class.)
There's also the age-old idea of adding new specs. That being said, with the new changes to how changing specs works, that would hardly encourage anyone to create a new character. Ranged specs for Rogues, Demon Hunters, Paladins, Warriors, or Death Knights would all fit fine with their class concepts, and there are also some crazy ideas about making a melee Mage or even a tanking Warlock (though again, Vengeance kind of fits that concept already.)
New specs for existing classes (Druids would probably be exempt as they already have 4) could be cool, but they might wind up being even more work and trickier to balance than adding a whole new class.
New race/class combinations aren't a huge incentive for new characters - especially in the days of paid race changes, but they are very safe for game mechanics. Cataclysm saw a ton of these, and we got one new one in Legion with the addition of Gnome Hunters. A lot of us are hoping that in the future there will be other options for Demon Hunters (I still want a Worgen Demon Hunter.) Granted, things are so much more open now than they were before Cataclysm that if we go much farther, it might just come to a point where every race can be every class. Sure, your Draenei Warlock would be utterly terrifying, but would it make sense in the lore?
Beyond those options, I think some really serious changes would have to happen to encourage people to create new characters. We don't know what the expansions after Legion will be, and while I'm always down to speculate (Old Gods/Warcraft-Equivalent-of-the-Underdark???? High Seas Adventure Fighting the Naga????) I'm also pretty happy to take my Demon Hunter in the fight against the Burning Legion.
But of course, Monks were also a pretty worthy addition to the game, and while I don't think they've ever met the popularity of the DK or the other vanilla classes, there are certainly plenty of people who main as Monks.
Almost every expansion has created what I call the "New Toon Incentive:" a reason to create a new character. I've been playing most of the characters who I spend the most time on since vanilla - my Paladin, Hunter, Druid, Warlock, Shaman, and Rogue - the ones who are the "class captains" amongst my alts, are all characters I created in the fall of 2006 before even Burning Crusade came out.
Historically, we've gotten new races and new classes in order to get people to try something new. Back in the days before a paid race change, if you wanted to create a Blood Elf as your new main, you had to play that character from level 1 (or 55 if it was a Death Knight.) And of course, there have never been paid class changes (and probably never will be,) so at least during Mists, you really had to level up your Monk from the start.
The character boost in Warlords of Draenor was almost an anti-new character system - it took a brand new character and caught it up to the point where it wasn't at a serious disadvantage at the start of the new expansion, but it did encourage some (those who didn't already have every class at 90 - I still haven't used my Warlords boost) to try something new.
The fact that Demon Hunters automatically get to level 100 after their starting experience also sort of negates their "newness" as characters, but given that it's a brand new class with its own mechanics, and that if they didn't it would be the default move to simply use one's Legion boost on one's Demon Hunter, I can forgive that.
We are of course in an era with Timewalking Dungeons, and I hope one day we'll get Timewalking Raids as well (probably make that a pre-made group kind of activity,) so even though Demon Hunters will be skipping twelve years of WoW content, they'll be able to go back and experience some of it at the appropriate power level.
Anyway, a question emerges, which is what the next New Toon Incentive (NTI) will be.
Warlords of Draenor did not bring a new race or a new class, but that was I think largely because Mists of Pandaria brought both. I've argued many times that a new race is far easier to introduce into the game, though their story might take a back seat.
I actually think Warlords would have been a fantastic opportunity to introduce playable Ogres for the Horde and Arrakoa for the Alliance. Given how recently we've been to Draenor and honestly how much Blizzard seems ready to move on from the problems of the expansion, I don't really expect to see much focus on Outland or Draenor any time soon, which definitely affects Arrakoa, though Ogres have enough of a presence on Azeroth that I don't think we need to go back there to bring them on board.
I think Naga could make for a really interesting playable race, but there are definitely some questions about their anatomy - like how pants or boots would work on a Naga character, or how they would ride on mounts. One could imagine a sort of "devolved" Naga that retains more of its Night Elf anatomy - still being serpentine, but retaining legs. Still, if they're planning that, planting the seeds for it in Azsuna during Legion would be the smart time to do so (though I do know there are some massive Naga hulks that seem to have more crocodilian legs than serpentine tails.) The racial abilities write themselves - like Undead, they'd have underwater breathing, but they'd also get a speed boost while swimming.
One would also have to deal with whether they are fully corrupted by the Old Gods like the Black Dragonflight (before Wrathion's purge, after which the question is "what Black Dragonflight?") or if they were simply transformed by them like with the Curse of Flesh. Blizzard could easily retcon this, as the history is pretty vague to begin with.
You could also really expand on the lore of Murlocs, Troggs, Gnolls, Kobolds, or other stock hostile creatures to give them enough of a culture to play them, but that might be a little too silly.
Ethereals are another popular choice for playable race, and I actually think you could do fun things with using their bandages as a substitute for skin and facial features.
Of course, there is still the option to add new classes to the game. Here I think you have to be really careful. Death Knights and Monks were able to carve out some pretty distinct niches when they were introduced, but Demon Hunters absolutely stepped on the toes of Warlocks, requiring a serious redesign of the Demonology specialization (even though I loved the old Demo, I actually really like the new one too, so I'm not too upset - I just wish I had some ability affected by my Codex of Xerrath.) I will always be happy to see a new class, but it's going to be tricky to find a new archetype.
One archetype that is often put forth is the Tinker - a class that uses devices and technology to fight and potentially heal or tank.
The good news is that this archetype could fit pretty well in a Mail armor slot - having jangly metal armor sounds perfect for a Tinker. It would also be very different than any existing class, though it would definitely step a bit on the toes of the Engineering Profession. Is that the end of the world? I don't know.
Beyond the Tinker, I can't really think of much else. A Barbarian would be too similar to a Warrior. A Necromancer would be the blend of a Death Knight and a Warlock (actually, it would make total sense for Necromancer to be a Warlock spec that works almost exactly like Demonology does now, only summoning undead instead of demons.) D&D has Sorcerers as a distinct class from a Wizard, but both are pretty darn close to the Mage archetype.
Thankfully, Blizzard has four years before anyone expects a new class to come out, and at this point I don't think anyone would blame them too much for choosing not to add more to the ranks. I was holding out for a very long time for Demon Hunters, and now that we've got them, I'm pretty satisfied with the class selection in WoW. (Though I'd be really into a Tinker class.)
There's also the age-old idea of adding new specs. That being said, with the new changes to how changing specs works, that would hardly encourage anyone to create a new character. Ranged specs for Rogues, Demon Hunters, Paladins, Warriors, or Death Knights would all fit fine with their class concepts, and there are also some crazy ideas about making a melee Mage or even a tanking Warlock (though again, Vengeance kind of fits that concept already.)
New specs for existing classes (Druids would probably be exempt as they already have 4) could be cool, but they might wind up being even more work and trickier to balance than adding a whole new class.
New race/class combinations aren't a huge incentive for new characters - especially in the days of paid race changes, but they are very safe for game mechanics. Cataclysm saw a ton of these, and we got one new one in Legion with the addition of Gnome Hunters. A lot of us are hoping that in the future there will be other options for Demon Hunters (I still want a Worgen Demon Hunter.) Granted, things are so much more open now than they were before Cataclysm that if we go much farther, it might just come to a point where every race can be every class. Sure, your Draenei Warlock would be utterly terrifying, but would it make sense in the lore?
Beyond those options, I think some really serious changes would have to happen to encourage people to create new characters. We don't know what the expansions after Legion will be, and while I'm always down to speculate (Old Gods/Warcraft-Equivalent-of-the-Underdark???? High Seas Adventure Fighting the Naga????) I'm also pretty happy to take my Demon Hunter in the fight against the Burning Legion.
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