Warlords of Lame-or?

Well met adventurers! As I was working on last weeks review of patch 6.2, I started thinking about I honestly felt about Warlords of Draenor so far on the whole. Any time a new patch or expansion goes into a testing phase, players become excited. They become excited for new things to do, new bosses to defeat, and new places to explore. However, this time around, it sort of feels like we are excited for 6.2 primarily because it could serve as a break in the monotony we've been feeling for most of this expansion. I'll elaborate on this more later on in the post, but for now I want to focus on the things that Warlords of Draenor has gotten right.

The Good:
The Leveling Content: The entire leveling process from 90 to 100 was exactly what I have been looking for from World of Warcraft since Cataclysm. The 1-60 revamp was excellent, but players who were already max level didn't get to experience it fully. Even when playing an alt, the leveling process has become so accelerated that you need to stay in a zone well past level in order to see how the story of the zone plays out. Mists of Pandaria leveling was alright, but other than the Jade Forest quests, too much story telling was left to the level 90 daily progression. Warlords of Draenor did a near perfect job of walking you through the zone in a way that felt complete. The zones are beautiful and unique, while at the same time feeling familiar to the Outland zones we know. You had an indicator in the quest log that told you when you finished all of the story quests, and when you looked at the zone map you weren't leaving too much behind if you decided to move into the next zone to pick up the story there. The amount of XP gained in a zone was the amount you needed to level out of the zone without making you grind mobs for the extra half level. Also, the cinematic tied to each zone really made it feel like a story was being told. There were some points that could have used a little more help. Orgrim Doomhammer was inserted and taken out of the storyline very abruptly and somewhat unceremoniously. We didn't spend nearly enough time dealing with Shattrath, but I'll touch on that later. Save a few blemishes, the leveling process did a great job of making us feel like we were a part of Draenor.

Raid and Dungeon Quality: The dungeons this expansion hit it out of the park in my opinion. The zones were beautiful, they had a story being told, and they had us deal with characters we know. Some may say that taking out Ner'zhul in Shadowmoon Burial Grounds was too low key and doesn't give the character the attention he deserves. I'd argue that if we were to devote a raid to each of these warlords the expansion would last 3 years and we would all be burnt out by the end. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to fully explore each of these warlords and learn their entire stories, but that kind of time just isn't available. Auchindoun feels like a holy site under siege by Gorefiend. Even Grimrail Depot, while somewhat tedious to run, was implemented well and achieved the fantasy of fighting on a moving train. The raids we've seen so far in Warlords are equally well done. Highmaul feels like an ogre city and the progression through it feels like we are working our way to the top to find and defeat the leader. We take down the denizens of the lower city, then fight our way through the bodyguards of the Imperator, then we take down the man in charge himself. Fighting ogres isn't the most exciting raid theme in the world, but as a beginning raid to get people up to speed in raiding it does a great job. Then we come to Blackrock Foundry. The Iron Horde is producing weapons here to supply their army against us and for their attempted invasion of our Azeroth. I have to commend Blizzards design on this raid because that's exactly what it feels like. There is the giant furnace powered by a fire elemental being used to fuel the forges. There are conveyor belts of weapons running from the furnaces. There is a train depot bringing shipments to the Iron Docks for distribution. The whole instance really feels like it's a massive forge fueling an army. And obviously it culminated in an awesome encounter with one of the warlords. There are some things to criticize obviously, as nothing is perfect, but I will touch on that later as well. All in all, Warlords has an excellent set of dungeons and raids so far. I'd even go so far as to say that Blackrock Foundry is close to my top 5 of raids all time.

The Garrison: This is sort of a split feature for me in terms of whether it is a plus or a minus. I chose to put Garrisons in the good section because I think the feature as whole is a good thing. Much of the negative feeling associated with garrisons so far has been due to the effects they have had on gameplay, not necessarily with the garrisons themselves. It feels good to have my own base of operations, and to finally feel like I'm important to the story after saving Azeroth SO many times. I enjoy the perks of being able to customize my buildings to suit my gameplay. Some buildings allow me to teleport around the continent, while some buildings allow you to do quests for forgotten secondary characters and receive cool items and followers. The garrison campaign quests are a great storytelling device (Azuka Bladefury is an awesome new character in a world full of familiar faces). Garrison invasions are a fun, quick way to  get a rewards while also reminding us that we aren't in our world and it is dangerous. There are some places to improve obviously. The mission table takes us out of the fantasy of the garrison being a place for us to lead our forces against the Iron Horde. It's nice to see our followers walk around our garrison and interact, but the only way we see them actually accomplish anything is through a quick attack animation upon mission completion (and that's only if you don't use Master Plan, and who isn't using that at this point?). It just feels like the mission system takes away from the immersion that the rest of the garrison does a great job with. The rest of the downsides I'll talk about next.

The Bad:
The Garrison Downsides: Blizzard had expressed their concerns about implementing player housing in the past. It's been a question posed at every Blizzcon before Warlords announced the garrison feature. Blizzard was concerned that it would be an extension of the capital city problem where players just hang out in the capital city until it's time to do a raid or dungeon, then they just go back to Orgrimmar or Stormwind. And they were right. We queue for dungeons and battlegrounds from our garrisons and get teleported back when were finished. The apexis dailies help a bit but don't do enough. At Blizzcon 2013 we were told that we would be able to build our garrison in any zone in Draenor that we chose. I understand the issues that may cause and why they eventually chose to go the way they did instead, but even something as small as being able to change the look of where our garrison is located would have helped to break up the monotony of being in the same place all the time. Professions suffered as a result of garrisons as well. In order to create diversity in small building choices, any player was given the chance to build any profession building. A paladin can build a forge without being a blacksmith and craft plate gear for themselves. There are 10 choices in small buildings currently. Eight of them are profession buildings and the other two are the Salvage Yard and Storehouse. Without being able to make any of the profession buildings, players would end up with buildings for their two professions and one of the two others. Not a lot of diversity and Blizzard wanted everyones garrison to feel somewhat unique. This, along with every player having access to ore and herbs in their garrison, made professions somewhat trivial. The benefit of having any given profession was decreased by giving everyone access to 70% of what those professions had to offer. As an expansion progresses, the value of professions decreases. Gear becomes available to players through new avenues, and as a result less crafted gear is needed. There are some exceptions like enchants and item upgrades but that doesn't eliminate the issues the garrison options create.

Ashran: I want to preface this section by pointing out that I don't PvP. I have queued for Ashran a total of 3 times. However, that doesn't take away from the fact that Ashran is kind of a mess. Blizzard  set the player limit in order to improve on the Wintergrasp experience of Wrath of the Lich King. Faction imbalance cause one side of the battle for Wintergrasp to be massively outnumbered and receive a huge health and damage buff to compensate. Unfortunately, the buff wasn't enough most of the time and the lower population faction would be locked out of some parts of content. While I applaud Blizzard for preventing that issue, having a world event gated by a queue prevents people on both sides from being able to access the content and that's not a place a game designer wants to be. PvP has enough of a barrier to entry as it is and it doesn't need to be compounded upon. Additionally, Ashran has sort of become a game of keep away as I understand it. Faction death balls rush from one bonus objective to another, avoiding the other team entirely, in order to maximize Conquest Point gain. THE PvP zone has become a PvE zone with the option of trying to interact with the opposing faction. Ashran was hyped up to be a huge PvP zone with constant objectives and things going on. It was meant to be an improvement on Wintergrasp and Tol Barad and instead took a step backward. Now it looks more like a Alterac Valley sprint to the faction leader. I'm confident that Ashran is also not living up to Blizzards expectations, and I think my next item has something to do with it.

Warspear/Stormshield: When Warlords of Draenor was announced, the original faction capitals were Bladespire Citadel in Frostfire Ridge for the Horde, and Karabor in Shadowmoon Valley for the Alliance. The quests to reclaim both of these locations are still in place and happen early in the questing process, right around the same time we get our quests to visit the current factions hubs in Ashran in fact. I think as the garrison feature grew (and eventually even took over patch 6.1) Blizzard realized that they would serve as the factions base of operations as opposed to any specific Draenor city. They were right, but only a form of self fulfilling prophecy. All the quests that tell move us to the next zone or story point, tell us to return to our garrison when they could easily tell us to return to Karabor. The Frostwolves and Draenei are our only true allies in taking on the Iron Horde,  and rather than treat them as allies who have integrated themselves with our cause,  they become basically nomads jumping from one quest hub to another. We should have had fully realized capital cities that had the look and feel of the continent we have come to explore and save. Instead, we were given a plot of land on a distant island and threw up huts and buildings to serve whatever random purposes we needed. And as a result, Ashran was shrunk down to accommodate two faction capitals. I think this change during the development process was the biggest mistake Blizzard made with this expansion. The original cities could have helped to separate some of the garrison importance while reinforcing the immersion in Draenor. Blizzard increased our characters importance at the cost of several other pieces of content.

Daily Quests?: This is a bit of a minor gripe but it's worth pointing out. One of the major complaints of Mists of Pandaria was that there were so many daily quests and that they felt mandatory. And they were mandatory for more that one reason. If you wanted access to the best enchants or BOE gear you had to grind multiple reps to exalted, and you had to do the same if you wanted to see the story develop. Blizzard took that criticism to heart, but as they have in the past, they took it too far. Now we get one apexis daily to choose every day along with some pet battle quests or dungeon quests from the Inn if you have that building in your garrison. To compound the issue, all of the apexis quests are the same thing. You kill mobs and click on items to fill up a bar. What you are killing is irrelevant. They all feel the same and they don't tell you anything about what's going on. I talked earlier about how Shattrath was underutilized. We spend a couple of quests in Talador dealing with the invasion of the Burning Legion, then we fight a few dozen of them off when we choose that apexis daily. That's it. Why not implement a quest chain similar to patch 5.1 where we have 2-3 quests to do every day, then once a week we get a story quest that tells us something about the Legion's plans. You could even go with every two weeks if you wanted to spread things out like the garrison campaign did. This again comes back to the garrison issue. We need more reasons to be out in the world besides farming for savage blood and farming mobs for horrible rep grinds.

Well that ended up being longer than I thought it would. As I said last week, I'm optimistic that 6.2 will bring some improvements and some enjoyable content to the game, but I will do another one of these posts as we get toward the end of Warlords to see if those improvements were enough.

Thanks again for reading,
Chris

Warlords of Draenor 6.2

Welcome back friends! Sorry I missed posting last week. I've been sick as a dog and spent 4 days or so mostly in bed. Fortunately, patch 6.2 for Warlords of Draenor dropped on the PTR this week, which gives me plenty to write about to make up for it. Fair warning, some of the things I touch on may be spoilers for some of you, so precede at your own risk.

Patch 6.2, unnamed as of now, will let us follow Gul'dan and the Iron Horde back into Tanaan Jungle.   It's very much the same jungle area from the Warlords starting experience, but with some new areas to explore as well as a new daily quest hub. Most exciting of which is Hellfire Citadel, our new tier 18 raid zone. As many of you may remember, Hellfire Citadel was a dungeon and raid zone in Hellfire Peninsula during Burning Crusade. It held 3 dungeons, Hellfire Ramparts, the Blood Furnace, and the Shattered Halls (featuring our timelines Kargath Bladefist), and one raid, Magtheridon's Lair. As a side note, it seems silly to call it Magtheridon's Lair when he is being held captive there by the fel orcs to drain his blood. Hellfire Citadel in Tanaan Jungle has a similar look to it, obviously minus the red tint of shattered Outland, however this time it has become Gul'dan's hideout used as a fortress for the demons of the Burning Legion. Of course, as the biggest bad asses Azeroth has to offer, it's our job to storm the Citadel and take out the Legion's forces concluding with our favorite tree lover, Archimonde. As someone who began playing in Burning Crusade, but wasn't current with raiding for Mount Hyjal, I'm excited for a chance to take this guy on. The other bosses are just as exciting. A newly Fel-corrupted Kilrogg, a soul-gorged Gorefiend, and a reanimated Mannoroth! A great way to get me excited about a raid is to introduce interesting bosses for me to kill. While I enjoy Blackrock Foundry a lot, it is a little boring at times killing mostly orcs with different jobs. There is some diversity to the bosses, but not as much as there seems to be in Hellfire Citadel. 

There are goodies to earn in the new raid other than shiny new loot of course. There is a follower to earn similar to Aknor Steelbreaker in the Flamebender Ka'graz in BRF. We also will have a chance for a Felsteel Annihilator mount which is an awesome reskin of the Sky Golem mount in the form of the iconic Fel Reaver from Burning Crusade. Players who finish the Glory of the Hellfire Raider will be rewarded with the Reins of the Corrupted Dreadwing, a Fel corrupted version of the Warlords Deluxe Edition mount reward. All in all Hellfire Citadel seems like a great raid tier that I'm extremely excited for.

Once again, our Garrisons will be getting another update. This time we will need to add on a shipyard in order to make our way to Tanaan and confront Gul'dans apparent naval force. I don't have much information yet on how all of this plays out, as the PTR is currently bugged and won't allow quest progress. I'm going to try and progress through it and see how it all ties together because it all just seems a bit clunky to me right now. Adding in naval missions doesn't feel interesting to me. There is already barely a difference between the different types of missions outside of what rewards they give, and I'm skeptical that naval missions will feel any different. 

We will also be getting Mythic difficulty 5 man dungeons as well as Timewalker dungeons. Mythic 5 mans are interesting to me simply because its another attempt from Blizzard to keep 5 man dungeons relevant after the initial launch of the expansion. Challenge modes have help somewhat but the rewards become less and less worthwhile as the expansion goes on. Right now Mythic dungeons will reward 680 gear with a  chance for 700 gear off of the last boss of the instance. This will prove useful for most raiders who aren't farming Mythic BRF. However, once we have a few weeks in Heroic Hellfire Citadel the reward for these may not be worth the effort anymore. Timewalker dungeons are definitely cool. Scaling down to current item level for Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King dungeons is an interesting test of what the technology is capable of and how much external tuning is required. Dungeons in BC were tuned and designed around different sets of truths, and the same is true of WotLK. As the game grows and changes the basis on which things are designed changes. The danger is that the games current state requires too many changes to be made to previous content as it is made current. If Blizzard has to spend time rebalancing old content for the Timewalker feature, it may be too burdensome for us to see a Timewalker Black Temple run or something along those lines. I'm optimistic that that won't be the case but its something to keep an eye on. 

I'm going to keep it to a short post for now. I will be putting some time into writing up a sort of mid-expansion report card for Warlords of Draenor. I want to take the time to talk about what I like so far and what things have missed the mark. It's a subject which everyone has some thoughts on so please check back and take a look and let me know what you think. 

Thanks again for reading, Chris

Blackrock Mountain Review - The Good Stuff

Welcome back friends!

I've been playing a ton of Hearthstone lately. Some of it has to do with the fact that I got my fix of Sylvanas in Heroes of the Storm, but mostly, it's because Blackrock Mountain is coming. Last time I did a partial review of the cards we had been shown up to that point. This time I just want to stick to the cards I think will have a real impact. In my opinion Blackrock Mountain is bringing a bit less to the competitive scene than Naxxramas did. But who could have expected the effect of 30 cards in Naxx. Sludge Belcher, Loatheb, Zombie Chow, Shade of Naxxramas, Kel'thuzad, Mad Scientist, Webspinner, and obviously the mess that was Undertaker, have all made huge waves at one point or another. I'll start with the class specific stuff I think will see some play.

Fireguard Destroyer fits a spot that Shaman desperately needed some help. They have often struggled in the 4 drop spot and have been forced to play an excessive number of 5 drops and 3 mana overload spells. Even if this guy only gets 1 extra attack it's ahead of budget for a 4 drop and all that's left is to decide how much the Overload affects it. The downside is sometimes you will get 4 attack and play into your opponents Big Game Hunter (Shaman usually is light on targets) but those situations will be few and far between. I like the role this guy fills for shaman, giving it earlier board presence without relying on Flametongue Totem to make it's trades.

Demonlock has been around since GvG in one shape or another. Some versions were running Imp-losion and Mistress of Pain to control the board early, before Mal'ganis and Jaraxxus closed things out. Lately, we have transitioned into a hybrid Handlock/Demonlock that plays more to the late game.  Demonwrath fits more in the former but could see play in both. A 3 mana Consecrate is nothing to scoff at. Especially when you don't have to worry about killing all the Imps you just made. Warlock does have a lot of competition in board sweepers with Hellfire and Shadowflame. I think all 3 have their upsides and the deck they are going into will decide which will see play. People are expecting BRM to usher in a very controlling metagame. If that doesn't end up being the case Demonwrath will go along way to keeping the hyper aggressive decks in check.

Paladin is being hyped as the class to truly take advantage of the dragon synergy theme of BRM and it's primarily due to this card. 5/5 for 5 is the stats we're looking for, and it comes with upside to boot. There is no shortage of Dragon cards with high cost and high upside that let you take advantage of this Battlecry. A turn 7 Ysera, or turn 6 Chromaggus (who we will get to in a minute) can have a huge effect on a game. We'll see exactly how the decks shape out but I expect to see a lot of Paladin on ladder the week Dragon Consort is released. 

Chromaggus creates some interesting situations that we don't have a chance to see often. Similar to Duplicate and Echo of Medivh, it allows us to play 3 more of the same card in a game. Any time a card allows you to break the rules of the game it's worth paying attention to. This holds true in most games. Magic players may remember when the "Wish" cycle was released years ago. Being able to access your sideboard mid-game created avenues to win games that normally didn't exist. We get in habits of trying to bait the Black Knight or a Shaman's last Hex before playing a high impact minion. What happens when your opponent has a second Black Knight because of this core-hound dragon? Chromaggus has the size we want as well. Not enough power to get killed by BGH, and 8 health to not easily be taken down in combat. This is by no means a card for every deck, but it should see play in midrange and control decks, especially ones that have consistent card drawing engines.

This is the best card in the set. Expect to see this in any deck that doesn't want to win the game before turn 7. Similar to how Chromaggus lets us break the 2 card maximum rule, Thaurissan lets us break the 10 mana per turn maximum rule. I expect the Dark Iron Emperor to slide into decks the same way Loatheb did after Naxx. I can't overstate how powerful the effect on this card is. If your opponent gets 2 turns worth out of this with more than 3 cards in hand, expect to fall way behind. Decks like Freeze Mage, Combo Druid, and maybe even Malygos Shaman, will make this guy a lynchpin. Being able to play an Alezstrasza and an Ice Block in the same turn, Force of Nature and double Savage Roar in the same turn, or Malygos and multiple burn spells, sign me up. It is also going to become much more difficult to track what your opponents care capable of on a given turn. All that being said, kill this guy as soon as you can.

I'm sure other cards will see some competitive play. Quick Shot is right up Face Hunter's alley. Both Volcanic Drake and Hungry Dragon will probably find decks. Maybe even Nefarian will find a home. I'm excited to see what Blackrock Mountain does to the game, and I'm excited to dive in.

Thanks for reading. See ya next time.

Chris

Way Too Early Blizzcon Predictions

Welcome back friends!

It's official. Blizzcon will be back in Anaheim this November. It's an exciting time for any Blizzard fan. This past year was as good of an example of that as ever. The announcement of Overwatch was the biggest announcement Blizzard has given us in years. Any given year some IPs are represented more than others. For instance, 2014 had very underwhelming announcements for Warcraft, and especially Diablo. Warcraft got an exclusive movie preview, which is exciting in its own right, but not something that all fans can appreciate since it was only for con-goers. Other than that, we got some patch previews and a couple panels that served primarily as QA. We didn't even get a preview of 6.2 where they finally open up Tanaan Jungle to see what Gul'dan has been up to. Diablo got even less. There was a preview of Season 2 items and tweaks to the rift systems. However, most of what was shown was catered to the full time Diablo 3 player. No new story to explore, no truly new features, and no new incentives for Seasons. Obviously, Blizzard isn't going to have something big to preview for every game every year. They just don't produce content that quickly. Which brings us to the point of the post. Let's try and predict what we will see in November. TOO SOON EXECUTUS! you say? I know, I know. But hell, it's fun and I'm going to do it anyway. I will revisit after Gamescom or something as we get closer.

Starcraft:
Legacy of the Void beta is beginning in the next week or so. Blizzard has said that the beta is going to be longer than usual this time around. For reference, the beta for Heart of the Swarm began on September 4, 2012 and the game released on March 12, 2013. Therefore, if the LotV has a beta longer than 7 months, we may not see a release date announced until Blizzcon. As unfortunate as that would be, it seems possible. Blizzard stated in the LotV beta preview that they are going back to the drawing board with the second Terran unit. The unit will have to be designed, modeled, put into the beta for testing, all of which take time and we all know how Blizzard is with iteration. We shouldn't forget the mess that was the Warhound in Heart of the Swarm's beta period. Even if we do have a release date going into Blizzcon, I don't think we will see much for Starcraft. There will probably be a few new playable missions to give us more of a look in to the story or possibly the campaign only units. That's about it.

Heroes of the Storm:
Heroes feels like it has been out for a year for me. I was lucky enough to get into the tech alpha last year so my view of it is a little skewed. I've unlocked all the heroes and have settled into a rhythm of just buying whatever hero comes out every 6 weeks. Blizzard has said that's the timeframe they want for releasing new heroes, so there is reason to believe we will see 5 or 6 released between now and Blizzcon. Perhaps we will see a new map released by then too. I expect the Heroes panels to preview some characters and maps, which is always fun, but this year I expect the priority to be solidifying the esports side of things. Similar to how Blizzard handled the WCS, I see them setting  up a tournament structure for Heroes. Promoting Heroes of the Storm as a competitive esport is essential in bringing people in from other competing MOBAs. I personally hope for some changes in pricing for the game's official release (the game is basically release now with anyone being able to buy in, but calling it a beta lets them change things like this). The price for heroes and mounts is just too high. I have less of a problem with skin prices just because the quality is just that much higher than any other game is offering right now. I'm interested in the process Blizzard will go through with their Heroes announcements. Being a free to play game without semi-regular expansions, it will be important to have a unique way to create hype.

Hearthstone:
We have a years worth of history to work with now for Hearthstone. I expect the schedule to continue as it did for 2014. Adventure mode announced at PAX East and released shortly after, followed by Expansion announced at Blizzcon and released shortly after. There is no shortage of raid and dungeon content in the Warcraft universe to convert to Adventures on a yearly basis. Expansions can be built around nearly any theme, and card games have some benefits that MMOs and RPGs don't. If balancing a card for release ends up more difficult than expected, you can simply put the card on the shelf until the next expansion rolls around and simply rethink the dressing. For example, if the Piloted cycle from Goblins vs. Gnomes wasn't working the way they wanted, they could take 5 months to tweak it and then release it as part of  Blackrock Mountain as a Dragon rider cycle. This is a great advantage especially for a card game where regular releases of new cards is so important. We have no idea what to expect for the theme of the expansion announcement at Blizzcon. No one really expected GvG until datamines started popping up. It could be anything, and that's exciting.

Overwatch:
At PAX East we were told that the closed beta would begin "Fall 2015".  I'm hoping that we don't have to wait until Blizzcon to find out the exact date, but that is a possibility. If the beta is going on at the time of Blizzcon I would expect a show match event similar to Heroes of the Storm in 2014. With the game entering beta in the fall, we still have a long time until we have a release date or anything along those lines. What I think we will see is more information on Blizzard's story plans and supplemental content outside of the game. It's curious to me that Christie Golden doesn't have any Warcraft novels announced for 2015. Christie has been a huge part of the out-of-game lore for Warcraft, and I find it hard to believe that they don't have her working on something. I'm not predicting any kind of Overwatch novel, but it's something to keep in the back of your mind. Outside of that, we will probably see a hero or two as well as a map. I think we will see some kind of video detailing some story aspects at an Overwatch panel, but who knows exactly what it will be. At this point, any Overwatch news is exciting.

Diablo:
2015 will be the year we get some really Diablo news. I think we will see an expansion announcement in 2015. However, if history holds true we may see it at Gamescom rather than Blizzcon. Reaper of Souls was announced there so they may continue that trend. Either way, we won't have a release date at Gamescom so Blizzcon will be where we get the real meat. The story left off in Reaper of Souls with Tyreal nervous of the power of the Nephalem and the choice they have to fight alongside good or evil however they see fit. I'm sure there will be some kind of confrontation with Imperius since that guy has been being a dick to us for 2 games. We may get some information on where Ithereal went after the worldstone was destroyed. Then there is actual gameplay changes. Act 6 will come in of course. We will probably need to level to 80 if we expect to follow the pattern set in Reaper. A new class is likely, unfortunately there are a couple of issues with that. The most popular predictions are Assassin, Druid, and Necromancer. However, much of the Necromancer kit was rolled into the Witch Doctor, and the same is true of the Assassin to the Demon Hunter. Druid is most likely to me. How they build the kit I'm not exactly sure, but there are some signs in the story mode dialogue of the Horadrim heading to the Skovos Isles and that is the perfect setting to introduce a Druid class. I'm sure the kit will consist of some shapeshifting and party buffs and healing affects similar to the Monk mantras but after that I'm not sure. We also don't know what kind of primary stat a new class would focus on. The Crusader was an easy prediction because we only had one strength class at the time. Now we have two classes for each of Intellect, Dexterity, and Strength. An interesting way to go would be to have a Druid gain added benefit for Vitality. Who doesn't want something to do with the thousands of Amethyst in their stash. On a bit of a side note, I am anxious to see if the Diablo 3 team can come up with some way to get all of the Lesser and Greater Evils into the game some how. Even if all it is is another uber boss set up similar to the Hellfire crafting process. What Diablo player doesn't want to see a shiny new version of Mephisto!?

World of Warcraft:
We're getting an expansion announcement kids. I know, I'm really stepping out on a limb with that one. A lot of Warlords of Draenor has yet to play out, and we still don't know exactly what role the Burning Legion is playing. But we pretty much know that's what's coming next. The real question is how is it coming. It will all depend on how the last couple patches of Warlords pan out. We could remain in Draenor to keep the Legion from getting to our Azeroth. They may get there despite our best efforts before the next expansion. Maybe we go to Argus to enlist the Draenei's help in defending our planet. Or we could get thrown a curveball. Outside of the theme of the expansion is the question of new race or class. Warcraft has generally introduced one or the other in an expansion with the exception of Mists and Warlords. We saw both in Mists and neither in Warlords. I think we will get one or the other in our next expansion. If I had to venture a guess it would be for a new class. 12 classes just feels like a good number. If the expansion is indeed Legion focused, Demon Hunter makes sense as a class. Metzen has hinted in Blizzcons past at a desire to bring Illidan back into the fold somehow and that would be an absolutely awesome way to do it. There are some other options but none of them seem to fit quite as well. It's similar to how the Death Knight was the perfect class to introduce for the expansion where we take on the Lich King. An interesting side note is if we get a release date. Blizzard has been on record for quite a while that they want to roll out expansions quicker and it's getting to the point where they need to put up or shut up. If we get another 9 month last patch of this expansion people are going to get very frustrated and that could be a problem when the Warcraft subscription model is very much the lifeblood of their other games. I would also expect to see an official trailer for the Warcraft movie. We will be about 6 months away from the current release date so the press machine will be in full force.


I will revisit some of this stuff as we get closer to Blizzcon and after we see what some of the other conventions tell us. Thanks again for reading.

Until next time, Chris

Missed Opportunities in Warcraft

Lok'tar Ogar Commander!

I played way too much World of Warcraft during Wrath of the Lich King. Most WoW players have gone through a phase where the hooks were in a little too deep. Wrath was it for me. I was fully dedicated to end game raiding. My guild for the end of the expansion broke top 200 US which felt like a huge deal. It was during this time that I truly learned to appreciate the raid zones we were entering into. Naxxramas, though just a rehash, felt epic. A huge sprawling necropolis full of undead minions, spiders, and abominations. Then there was Ulduar! Who didn't love Ulduar? Just clearing the trash to Flame Leviathan made it feel epic (despite how much I hated that trash by the end of the tier). Romping through a huge titan complex on our way to stop a returning Old God. Oh, and by the way, you should also talk to the giant star man who is sending a message to blow up the planet. Defeating Algalon was one of the most satisfying gaming experiences I've ever had. Then, we got Trial of the Crusader.....

After defeating an Old God, saving the world from the titans, and while under threat of the Lich King himself, we decided to start a jousting tournament. We are at the feet of Icecrown Citadel, epicness almost on the level of Ulduar, and we start a jousting tournament. The premise was that we held a tournament to determine the strongest Azeroth had to offer against the Lich King. And this tied in to Icecrown Citadel where Arthas tells us that he let this all happen so that when he killed us he had an army of undead stronger than what the armies of Azeroth had left. The problem with all of this was that ToC felt like a silly way to prepare for the Lich King. It felt more like a distraction than preparation. That is what got me to thinking. What could have been a suitable raid replacement? What would have got the player excited to warm up for a fight against gaming's best villain, and cut some of his resources off?

Azjol-Nerub was already the basis of two dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King. The lair of the Nerubians and the invading Faceless Ones had the feel of an epic sprawling zone. The architecture was unique, the mood was dark and ominous, and it had the size befitting a raid zone. What if in our trip to Ulduar, we discovered an alternate entrance to Azjol-Nerub, that Yogg-Saron was sending his minions through to invade. Through this entrance we decide to kill two birds with one stone. We can take out the minions of the Old God to prevent any future trouble, and we can also cut the Lich King off from his Nerubian reinforcements. Get us out of that one circular room for hours on end in Trial of the Crusader. Best of all, we would get to keep the Anub'arak fight. Despite the raid that led up to him, the Anub fight was really well designed and extremely challenging on Heroic. I think the ToC tier is a noticeable blemish on the face of WoW's best expansion and all I can do is imagine how perfect of a path we could have had.

Then, there is the elephant in the room. If you are like me you have tried to put the mess that was Dragon Soul out of your mind.  Cataclysm was the period I played the least since I started in 2.1. I was working a ton and couldn't commit to a real raid schedule. Because of that most of the opinions I have on the expansion come from what I have heard from other people who played through it tier to tier. Blackwing Descent and Bastion of Twilight feel awesome. The mood is perfect for the zone, and the end bosses have meaning. Granted, Nefarion really just played on our nostalgia, but defeating the Twilight Council and Sinestra mean something. We do what a trip to Azjol-Nerub could have accomplished in Wrath. We cut Deathwing off of one of his supporting armies. Firelands was a raid that people seemed to enjoy overall. The boss mechanics were interesting, the zone felt epic, and Ragnaros was the right kind of challenge. The main issue was that the entire tier only consisted of  seven bosses. That is just too few for an entire tier. Especially when the next tier consists of mostly rehashed models in rehashed zones. With the exception of Spine of Deathwing, and Deathwing himself all of the fights feel like just bigger versions of trash that we have killed before. I think we could have gotten better.

We could keep all the 5 man dungeons leading up to our raid. We still go back in time to retrieve the Dragon Soul. However, this time when we come back to the present, the powers of the Dragon Aspects waned from the Dragon Soul. The first step of our raid is to go to Dragonblight and enter the Sanctums to defend the Aspects while they re-power it. We get four boss encounters as Deathwing sends his biggest baddies to try and stop us in the act. The fights could even include putting the sanctums themselves to use, a time stop mechanic in the Bronze Sanctum, things like that. The great thing about this is it lets us keep the Dragon Aspect story portion of the raid without just putting bosses in holes in the ground to the left and right of the temple. Once the Dragon Soul is fully empowered, we head to Grim Batol to confront Deathwing and his Twilight Dragonflight at their base of operations. We can face Ultraxion as we attempt to enter the mountain fortress since that fight was pretty interesting. Then, once we get inside, we have a fight or two on our way to a battle similar to Nefarian in the original Blackwing Lair. We find an open room on the side of the mountain in Twilight Highlands were we face off first against the human form of Deathwing. Honestly, with such an awesome model how did we not see more of this guy.

Let's face it. Deathwing is arrogant. He's a dragon aspect with the influence of the Old Gods. It's not out of the question that he would think he could take down 10-25 of us without giving 100%. Of course we would get to the point where he's had enough and flies outside and we get an epic battle with a giant dragon on a cliffside. No killing toenails here. Eventually we get the same ending, the Dragon Soul laser beams Deathwing out of the sky, and we reflect over what we've lost. The Aspects still lose some of their power to empower the Dragon Soul, and the age of mortals is still ushered in continuing our story as we know it. Same story with way cooler delivery.

I know that with World of Warcraft or any game really, everything comes down to development time and resources. Putting this much time into either an Azjob-Nerub raid, or a revamped Dragon Soul, would have extended a previous tier, or caused other features to be cut or suboptimal. None of that is lost on me, but dammit its fun to dream about this stuff. 

I really appreciate the people who have been checking out the blog. What I hope to get going now is a conversation on this stuff. Don't hesitate to leave a comment with your own ideas. Thanks again for reading.

Chris

Blackrock Mountain reviews pt 1

I should preface this post with a couple things. I used to play Magic on a semi-competitive level. I never got to the level that I wanted to, but I came close to punching my ticket to the Pro Tour on a couple of occasions. Adult life has taken away some of my ability to travel to tournaments and commit the time necessary to play at the top level. Hearthstone has been an amazing way for me to keep my competitive card game addictions under control. With any card game that I've played, expansion time is the most exciting time surrounding it. Blackrock Mountain ushers in that time for us in Hearthstone.

Blizzard has given us a preview of the first 2 wings so far. The first wing is Blackrock Depths. Once a sprawling maze of trash with unmemorable bosses sprinkled in, it is now a 3 boss wing consisting of the Grim Guzzler, The Arena, and the Dark Iron Emperor. I want to focus on the cards we have seen previewed so far. 

 Axe Flinger is interesting to me. Aggro Warrior is a deck type that has popped up from time to time. Unfortunately, the Warrior hero power leads to a more conservative deck style by default. Similar to how the Hunter ability promotes aggressive decks. However, there is a chance for Axe Flinger to help an aggressive strategy. Cruel Taskmaster and Death's Bite are already staples. Whirlwind sees some play depending on the metagame. All of these cards work well with Axe Flinger and get him closer to a point where he can deal 6-8 damage to warrant a 4 mana investment. One thing he has going against him, is the prevalence of Piloted Shredder in the 4 drop spot. Few cards are going to be able to compete with it.

 Grim Patron was one of the cards previewed at PAX East. Unfortunately, I don't see this card being a very relevant one. The ability on it can lead to some interesting board states sure, but a 3/3 for 5 is just too far below budget. Some of the same Warrior cards that work with Axe Flinger also help Grim Patron gain value, but at a steeper price. In a world full of Shadowflames and Blade Flurries, I don't think even a Grim Patron that has triggered a couple times will provide enough of a threat.

Lava Shock is the card that has gotten the most hype so far. 2 damage for 2 mana is a bit below budget, but the ability to remove the drawback of Overload from your other Shaman spells can't be overlooked. One of the problems with the Shaman class as a whole, is they can fall behind in the middle turns of the game because they rely too heavily on cards like Lightning Storm to keep control of the board. Lava Shock lets you get around that draw back, and actually makes your other cards more efficient than other classes alternatives. Compare Druid's Starfall to Lightning Storm. Both cards are essentially 5 mana for 2 damage across your opponents board (with potential upside), only the Shaman spell makes you pay the 5 mana over the course of 2 turns. I expect Lava Shock to help create some variety to Shaman decks. Perhaps a return to the double Doomhammer, double Lava Burst build from a few months back.


Today we were also given a preview of the second wing, Blackrock Spire. Blizzard's preview doesn't tell us the boss encounters yet, but it does show us 3 of the cards contained rewarded for the wing.

Dragon Egg is an exciting card. Nerubian Egg from Curse of Naxxramas made quite a splash in the Zoo Warlock decks following it's release. Dragon Egg is poised to do the same. Abusive Seargent, Power Overwhelming, and Defender of Argus are all highly played ways to activate this card and get some value out of it. Using a 1 drop to trade with an opposing minion while also being rewarded with a 2/1 is nothing to scoff at. Never mind if you can get a second trigger out of it. I think Dragon Egg is the kind of card to see play in a select few decks, but to really pull it's weight in those decks.



My excitement is gone. Dragonkin Sorcerer is slightly under budget for a 4 drop, where 4/5 yeti sized is the standard. I don't see the triggered ability on this guy being useful enough to warrant any play. The only spells people are commonly using to target their own minions right now are Spare Parts, and the decks creating them already have Piloted Shredder, Mechanical Yeti, and Goblin Blastmage competing for deck space. Maybe there is a Paladin deck out there that wants to buff this guy with Blessing of Kings or Blessing of Might, or a Priest for Power Word: Shield and Light go the Naaru, but I don't see it.

Rend Blackhand is a card I like the idea of, but misses the mark for me. His Battlecry is definitely useful in most matches, since almost everything is running at least a Loatheb. Where Blackhand lose it for me is his stats. At 8/4 he is a prime target for Big Game Hunter, and dies to an attack from almost any 4 drop (like Piloted Shredder, noticing a trend here?). If the ladder becomes a mess of control Warriors running Ysera and Alextrasza then I could see Rend Blackhand as a counter to that sort of mirror match. However, we live in a world with BGH, Black Knight, Mind Control Tech, Kezan Mystic, and Harrison Jones. All these cards are vying for deck space based on need. I just don't see Blackhand making his way in over any other niche counter.


All in all, so far I don't see quite the impact that Curse of Naxxramas had, but we are still early in the spoiler season and there is plenty of time. I'm always excited for the changes that new cards bring. Here's hoping for another card as amazing as Sludge Belcher. Honestly, that card it just too good. Let me know what you think, if there's anything I overlooked (I'm sure there is).

Thanks for taking the time to check it out.

Chris

Overwatch Lore

Hello and welcome back friends! It's story time! Do you want to hold hands? Lets hold hands?

Part of what keeps bringing people back to Blizzard games is the story and worlds they create. People rushed out to play World of Warcraft because they had experienced the story or Warcraft 3 and were anxious to jump in and be a part of picking up where it left off. We wanted to march right up to Northrend and rip Arthas off the frozen throne. Deckard Cain hadn't spoken a word to us in over 10 years, but as soon as we heard him in the reveal cinematic, we couldn't wait to return to Sanctuary and wipe out demons in Diablo 3. Blizzard has a history of creating heroes and villains that we genuinely care about. We become invested in Kerrigan's mission of vengeance against Mensk and Zeratul's quest for redemption among the Protoss. So imagine my joy when Chris Metzen announced a new IP at Blizzcon 2014. A new story to watch unfold, and this time I get to be there from the beginning. I was too young to fully grasp the story of early Warcraft and Diablo games. I barely grasped the original Starcraft campaign. Sure, I can look into all those stories now, and replay through them if I want to, but that's much different than being there from the beginning. You get to witness all the twists and turns and see all the mysteries revealed along with the rest of the world. And that is really exiting to me.

What we know so far:
We got a glimpse at the backstory for Blizzards new IP at the Overwatch Unveiled panel at Blizzcon. The game takes place in a "highly fictionalized version of future earth". The exact distance in the future that everything takes place is a little fuzzy at this point, but I'm sure it will be revealed in detail. The game we play takes place 60 or so years in the future. 30 years prior to that there was some kind of robot uprising. Because future = robots. I blame Amazon. Anyway, the Omnics (robots of the future) went haywire and start attacking human civilization. The world's response was to create a counter force to combat and defeat the Omnics. This task force was Overwatch. We don't know the reason for the uprising, but we do know that it was ended by Overwatch and it's agents. Overwatch stood as a global peacekeeping operation until a few years before our game begins, when they were mysteriously shut down. We jump in as Winston, the giant talking Ape, is trying to put Overwatch back together, and former agents and enemies pick sides and fight against one another to fulfill or prevent their objectives. Other than that, we only have character profile pages on Blizzard's official site to provide us with anything else. I urge you to take the time to read through each character's profile. The bit of information they give definitely helps to give some personality to the character's. There are even a few hints about what side of Overwatch each of them may end up on.

How are we getting lore?:
Both Chris Metzen and Jeff Kaplan have said publicly that we won't be seeing a campaign for Overwatch. I believe them, and that would normally concern me. For example, I am awful at Starcraft. But I play through every campaign simply for the chance to see what the story has to offer. But in the past few years, Blizzard has blown me away with what they are able to do outside of games to deliver story. In World of Warcraft they gave us the Burdens of Shaohao during Mists of Pandaria, and prior to the release of Warlords of Draenor, we got Lords of War. Both of these series gave us background and insight into segments of story not easily delivered in a traditional MMO. The art, the narration, everything just knocked right out of the park. I can easily see something similar done for Overwatch. However, thats not how I think we will get most of our story.

A few months ago, Chris Metzen did a podcast interview with Scott Johnson of The Instance. It wasn't a promotion of anything, just two guys chatting about influences, life, fatherhood. Give it a listen. In the interview, Metzen talks about how big of an influence Marvel was for him growing up. Heroes doing battle and saving the world. Overwatch taps into the super hero genre like none of their previous games has before. Like Warcraft draws from Tolkein, Overwatch draws from Marvel. Heroes have special powers and abilities, and they are forced to team up to defeat the big bad. It's my prediction that a majority of our Overwatch story will be told the same way. Comics. The characters are appropriately overdone in terms of personality. Tracer is more stereotypically British than necessary. It may not need to be that way for gameplay, but it definitely helps it to come across being read off a page. If only Blizzard had a relationship established with a comic company....

Chris Metzen has been writing on the Transformers comics by IDW since 2012. This is independent of Blizzard, but if anyone can sell IDW on a new comic series, Metzen can. Hell, he sold most of us on a time-travel story for Warlord of Draenor right? I think we will see some information regarding a comic series for Overwatch by the end of the year, and for it to release in 2016 leading up to the games official release. I could be wrong. We could see a full blown TV show or just a batch of cinematics released independently by Blizzard. But, comics are where I'm placing my bet. 

Either way, however we get our lore delivered, I'm ready. I can't wait to get wrapped up in another world that I can jump into and enjoy on my own. It can't come soon enough. Feel free to comment if you think I'm crazy, think I'm right on the money, or if you think there's a better way. I am always down for a conversation on this stuff. 

Until next time, thanks for reading

Chris