World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth (BfA) is out and we’re playing it! It’s nigh impossible to review an MMO like this, so instead I’ll keep you updated with a diary of my exploits in World of Warcraft’s latest expansion — and along the way share my impressions as well. This here is the second entry — read the first here .
My launch into Battle for Azeroth was inauspicious. I, like a few hundred or so other people, logged into the game to see a server list bearing no characters. Upon selecting my server, I was greeted with a black screen and the option to create a new character.
My Death Knight was gone.
Inside my head, my brain sat down at its little computer and loaded up the rational parts within. These parts, when found, would reasonably assume Blizzard had not lost thousands of characters on the launch of their new expansion pack. These parts would correctly analyse the situation — that the authentication servers are getting hammered, that there are probably millions of people all trying to log in at once, and that this issue would rectify itself in a few minutes. Instead of finding the rational parts, it was greeted with a black screen and the option to create irrational panic.
What if they actually lost my Death Knight?
For about four minutes, the panic that gripped me was all too real. I was going to have to Filip Miucin my World of Warcraft diaries! And I didn’t have a Youtube career where I stole other people’s content to fall back on! Also I’d miss my Tauren Death Knight, and I had some auctions that I hadn’t checked on before the servers went down for maintenance…
With my Scan and Repair complete, I decided I’d try to log in one more time. At the very least, I could document my issues to share with the official forums. Lo and behold, I was in!
Required Reading
I remember reading the Final Crisis DC event series a few years ago and getting to a point where I was utterly lost. I wasn’t an avid comic book reader, but I was interested in this particular run because I am a fan of Grant Morrison’s work on Batman.
Anyway I accidentally skipped an issue and found myself baffled. This is how I felt when I was picking up the Heart of Azeroth at the beginning of Battle for Azeroth.
I’d just come back from burning down the big tree, and Alliance scum were over-reacting by attacking the Undercity. We teleport to Lordaeron, Sylvanas makes some decisions I didn’t really agree with on a philosophical level and we arrive at a stalemate with the Alliance. No matter, we can kill them any time.
What confused me was then being tasked with finding Magni Bronzebeard at the Heart of Azeroth. On a grand scale I understand that there’s no point fighting over the scraps of what’s left on a dead Azeroth, and that Sargeras is fundamentally a dick for stabbing the planet.
I just feel like I missed a critical issue in the series that lead us to here. One minute I’m fighting blade to blade with Anduin Wrynn, King Wiener himself, and then I’m in a desert feeling some truly titanic level sword envy.
I’m not saying this is Battle for Azeroth’s fault, mind you. There’s a good chance this link was explained somewhere — extra reading I did afterwards inclines me to think a lot of it happened during my years away from the game. It’s just an odd introduction to the new expansion — it’s very disjointed storytelling, and done on such a grand scale that it feels off.
The Ace of Hearts
No matter — the Heart of Azeroth system, and the Azerite resource it’s tied to — is interesting. It links loot to character progression in a meaningful way. As you find Azerite, your Heart increases in level. You get Azerite by completing quests, killing world bosses, and running dungeons.
As your Heart of Azeroth increases in level, gear you’re wearing is activated accordingly, unlocking traits. These traits augment your talents, changing things up. They might add an AOE burst to an attack, or give you a quick shield on damage. My favourite is the one that changes Death and Decay, adding bone spikes to the circle to ramp up the damage and healing of the spell — an awesome boost to levelling.
It’s a great way to add an element of progression on top of those already present. If I think back to my earlier times with World of Warcraft, there were a lot more talents and options to check out while levelling, but they often weren’t meaningful choices. Now builds have been refined, rendered to a neat dozen or so options as you try to make a character that is right for your playstyle.
But simplified builds can lead to a dull levelling experience — especially if you’re powering from 110 to 120 to get to ‘the real game.’ The Heart of Azeroth system allows Blizzard to sort of fake that same sense of progression. Each new piece of gear can potentially reward you with a way to change up the way your character plays — and because you’re constantly changing gear while leveling, you’ll get to try a whole heap of different traits as a result.
I’m Walking Here!
Something I’m not a fan of is Battle for Azeroth’s love affair with the Sorkin-esque walk-and-talk. Probably most famously used in Gears of War, the habit of deluging a player with exposition during a slow walk to the next objective is probably the worst thing games still do in 2018, and World of Warcraft is a major offender.
The follow quest is like an enfeebled cousin to the dreaded escort quest. While you won’t risk failing thanks to bad AI, you’re also not doing anything engaging like trying to keep them alive. It’s like a cutscene, except with a cutscene I can leave my wireless headphones on and walk away from the computer to grab a drink.
There are more than a few good quests in BfA though — well so far, anyway. The voice work is good, and while WoW still loves to send you to an area to collect 12 of something, the 100% drop rate on said items is appreciated.
There’s a lot going on with the minimap as well, which means it’s easy to get distracted and find yourself abandoning your overall quest in pursuit of killing some rare mob or solving a quick traversal puzzle to get to a treasure chest. The only real issue is that it can feel like you’re spending too much time staring at the minimap sometimes — missing the world around you. When that world is the lifeless desert of Vol’dun, you don’t mind so much.
But Zuldazar has dinosaurs and trees and waterfalls and Latin American style pyramids for you to gawk at. It’s gorgeous, and it kinda sucks to miss it because you’re too busy keeping an eye out for other stuff. Truly missing the forest for the trees.
The Race to 120
I’m level 115 now, and I’m making great progress. As always, the game begins at 120 — but until then, I’m having fun. It’s a good sign, I think, that the ramp up for Battle for Azeroth is well refined. I’ve only seen a single Alliance character so far — hopefully the PvP will play a bigger role in my experience as I move further towards the level cap and the post-levelling experience.
Stick around for the third part of my diary series — I expect I will make it to level 120, and I’m hoping to get stuck into some Warfronts in my quest to kill the Alliance.
