world of warcraft classic

Excellent Warcraft Lore Primer

September 25, 2020 by Belghast

I realized I tweeted this out yesterday, but it is Friday and I am not sure what else I was going to write about. Yesterday I was thinking about the Warcraft movie and the Tweet by Metzen that folks are taking as acknowledgement that there is a second movie in the works. The truth is I remember very little about the early lore of the Warcraft universe apart from a vague sketch of the flow of the timeline. I played the hell out of Warcraft II, but mostly in multi-player and while I am certain that I played through the campaign I remember very little of it. When Warcraft 3 came out I was already deeply engaged in MMORPGs and either playing Everquest or Dark Age of Camelot and never quite got around to playing it other than in office LAN parties.

That means there are large chunks of the story that I only know from the perspective of how World of Warcraft presents that information. Doing some googling I stumbled onto this recap video by Drew Peezick aka @dpeezick / lawllypop. What I particularly like about the video is that it takes either real or created Hearthstone cards to represent the major players and presents the story in fairly simple terms. Warcraft as a universe is this sort of self contradictory mess that has evolved over time and rewritten bits as needed to support whatever the new story initiative happens to be. We are in truth heading into this territory as we approach the Shadowlands expansion and the lore that is being spun up about the pantheon of death.

I had originally arrived looking for the lore of the first two games but found that this is apparently a sequence of videos that carries forward with the first chapter being “before warcraft 3” the second chapter being “Warcraft 3” and then moving forward into classic World of Warcraft and through each off the expansions. It is funny that for even not playing the game Warcraft 3 I found myself familiar with a lot of the lore that was presented. I guess this comes as a result of playing the game for some sixteen years and having bits and pieces of it fed to me in a very slow drip through quest lines. World of Warcraft is a game that has regularly strip mined its past in order to present a path forward.

I think the thing that I really enjoyed the most while watching these videos is the way that they attempt to weave modern and past lore together into something that makes a reasonable amount of sense. Things get messy at times when you try and figure out the actual canon story of the dungeons and raids since these are ultimately multi-player experiences. The videos however do a really good job of shifting back and forth between the perspective of the Horde and Alliance and weaving our way around some of the key plot points that ultimately lead to the phases of the Classic wow release schedule and the key conflicts that were involved in each. For now a large amount of the Troll lore has been pushed off to its own video in the future.

I really enjoyed the Burning Crusade video because having not played horde during this era, I found some of the motivations of the Blood Elves to be a little obtuse and how exactly Kael’thas, Lady Vashj, Akama and Illidan fit together other than just being large set piece battles for us in the raids. I’ve never been a fan of Night Elves so I was turned off pretty early when I attempted to read War of the Ancients, so I greatly appreciate all of the lore bits from the novels, game and other canon sources woven back together into something that makes sense. Nobbel does an excellent job of deep diving into specific segments of lore, but what I was craving was an overview to understand how all of these disparate pieces are supposed to fit together… or at least a narrative that weaves them into something that makes sense. I think there exists a need for both types of content and I am happy to see that this channel is approaching it from a primer standpoint.

When we get to the Wrath of the Lich King, I think is where lore starts to become extremely cogent given that Shadowlands in essence feels a bit like a return to the themes of this expansion. Legion felt in many ways to be a return to the themes of Burning Crusade, so it makes sense hat we would have an expansion that attempts to continue the story forward from Wrath as well. Most of this lore I was already familiar with because I was actively raiding during this time and also I think in Wrath the way the stories were presented did a significant better job of pieces together the bits into a cohesive narrative. That said there were still a good number of things that I learned along the way and the video was well worth a watch.

With Cataclysm we reach the end of this journey so far. This video came out on September 19th, and I am certain that the creation of these requires a significant amount of time. The Pre-WC3 Lore video came out a year ago, Warcraft 3 9 months ago, Classic WoW 4 months ago, and then it seems like things have accelerated considerably with BC, Wrath and Cata coming out roughly a month apart. I would love to see a new video each month, but that still seems like an awful lot of work considering how much sifting through storyline it has to take and then the creation of the really cool Hearthstone style assets. It did remind me however that there were absolutely bits of story that I used to love about this game, and that while time and layers of story on top of it have muddied the water, the core is still enjoyable.

Even though the cosmology of this World of Warcraft has shifted and changed over time, I find it terribly interesting to at least mentally revisit the stories from its past. I think this video series does an amazing job of simplifying things enough to make it all work together. I think this is in essence what Blizzard has been trying to do over the last few expansions, is meld everything that came before with everything that is happening currently and attempt to lay out the cards in a manner that makes sense. All of that said I think these videos do a better job of presenting the core thrust of these expansions, and while there are hundreds of important side bits that blur our perspectives I greatly appreciate the way these present backstory at the moment it is important rather than trying to lay everything out in a strict chronology. I highly suggest you check it out and I greatly applaud someone who can make the nonsense that was the comic book series blend cleanly into the timeline. The entire playlist of six videos is just shy of two hours, and I personally consider that to be time well spent. The post Excellent Warcraft Lore Primer appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Regularly Playing: January 2020 Edition

January 31, 2020 by Belghast

For those who have read this blog for awhile, you will know that I have this semi-monthly column in which I talk about the games I have been playing regularly and also use this as an excuse to update my blog’s sidebar. The fourth quarter of 2019 was not a good time for regular updates to this because I failed to do one in October and also completely failed to do one in December. With the new year I am hoping to get back on track and keep these, but I have to warn you… today is going to be a bloodbath. Many games are being dropped from the list because quite honestly some of my gaming patterns have changed drastically over the last few months.

To Those Remaining

Destiny 2 represents one of only a few games that I am regularly playing that would classify as an endless game. I’ve had a shift away from Massively Multiplayer Online gaming towards more finite single player titles of late, and as such those evergreen games that I always spent time in have suffered greatly. I’ve come to realize that I had not really finished many games because I always wound up getting distracted by the online fare, and if I instead ignore them I find I actually do enjoy polishing games off. Destiny 2 however is near and dear to my heart and is the sort of thing that I can return to over and over again for short bursts. While I am sure that I am making Thalen sad for not playing much, I have missed out on a bunch of things and am mostly okay with that. I do want to finish the seasonal grind at some point but I have 40 some days to do that.

Diablo 3 is another one of those games that is so much part of my core identity that I am not sure if there will truly ever be a period of time when I am not at least idly playing it. Since the time of last posting I completely finished the PC Seasonal Content as a Demon Hunter and made it up through Slayer on the Switch with a Whirlwind Barbarian. The Switch is excellent for grinding a bit from bed before falling asleep, but even of late I have been opting out of that for a few reasons that I will get into later. With the talk of Diablo 4 on the horizon and the conversion of Torchlight Frontiers to Torchlight III, I still find myself extremely connected to this now aging game. I’ve just not found an adequate replacement to truly scratch the same action rpg ich.

To The New and Returning

Here is where the sad bits come in… there really isn’t anything new to be adding to this list. I have played several games but none of them are the sort of things that I expect to be adding to the list in any sort of a permanent manner. Instead I think I am going to implement a new feature called “Ships Passing in the Night” where I talk about some of the games that I had short but intense interactions with, but feel the chapter is either closed or will be closed once I complete them.

Ships Passing in The Night

I have so much love for this game, and while I fully expect to go back and play it at some point I am effectively done with it for the moment. For years I found this game incomprehensible in the way it sorta just drops you in the middle of everything with limited explanation. It was only through watching the Netflix Witcher series that I was able to gain proper purchase and glean enough information to make me feel firmly planted in this games universe. Since then I have been on a tear of playing through everything I could stand from the Witcher games and even reading the novels. The first Witcher will likely always be an impassable wall for me, but I have accepted it. This third game however goes on the top games of all time list for me personally.

After playing through the first Witcher game I had so many unanswered questions, and as a result I opted to do things backwards and go back searching for the answers in Witcher 2. While it was a bit of a struggle to get used to the interface, I eventually mastered it and had a phenomenal time doing what was effectively a golden path play-through of the non-human side of the story. I even was engaged enough to restart and try playing through the human side, only to determine that I had absolutely made the correct choice the first time around and wander away like a bored toddler. This game is always going to have a soft spot in my heart, but it is a deeply flawed experience, but one worth experiencing. Unfortunately I realized too lately that the answers to all of my questions lie in the books and not the past video games.

Another flawed but phenomenal gameplay experience is that of Greedfall. It is a game that is tackling some themes that I have never quite seen a game tackle, which are really spending time exploring the sins of the colonial era. While there are some weird things going on at times with the interface and with combat, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience playing this game and as a result it has caused me to be interested in a deep dive of the developers back catalog of games. If you love the Bioware style of games you might legitimately be interested in exploring the games from french developer Spiders.

This is the second game I have played by Spiders and I am enthralled. This is currently my gaming main squeeze, at least until I finish it and It is a thoroughly interesting experience. The game is set in a post colonial Mars where it is ruled by rival corporations and military powers that end up creating a pretty damned oppressive environment. That said the game threw me a massive curve ball yesterday and opened up considerably and I am so there for the long ride. Imagine a setting that blends Blade Runner, Dune, Total Recall and the Red Faction games with a dash of Fallout into a single setting. I actually am enjoying the combat in Technomancer way more than I did Greedfall, and I am curious what things are going to be like if I keep going backwards in the Spiders catalog.

It is possible that this game might make it to regularly playing status, but for now I am throwing it in this category because I am just not sure. It is a Not-Pokemon MMORPG and it is charming as hell and does a really good job of both mirroring the best parts of Pokemon and bringing new things to the genre. The only thing that I find lacking is there is no xp sharing system and you legitimately have to fight with your not-pokemon to level them instead of doing what I do and just dragging them along for the ride. I’ve only played a few hours on this latest build even though I was a backer and have played various builds along the way. Time will tell if this becomes something more serious for me or not.

To Those Departing

Sorry Dragalia… you had a really good run but there are two things that happened. Firstly the gameplay finally reached its point where it became repetitive to a fault. Secondly I have been trying to read more often and as such that time when I was spending playing Dragalia Lost got replaced with time in the Kindle app. I am not the type of player that ever opts to play a mobile game if I have access to other options, so once it lots its prime real estate for bedtime gaming it really dropped off my radar. I am happier to be reading each night than to be spending time in a repetitive grind that doesn’t really go anywhere.

Sorry Boo, it’s me not you. This is a game I expect to return to and finish up, but in truth it is one of those things that should have graced the new category and not really added as a regularly playing. I’m somewhere around halfway done with the game and I figure when I deplete my current run of bioware-like games I fully expect to dust this off and finish it up. I love the game lots, but just have not been playing it.

It just isn’t doing it for me anymore. I can’t fully explain it, but after the absence when I was frustrated with Blizzard over the Hong Kong thing… I found it impossible to get reconnected and actively start playing again. Someone let the magical blue smoke escape and it just doesn’t do much of anything for me right now. I am for whatever reason in the wrong mind state to be enjoying it and as such it leaves list.

While I know without a doubt that I will be back and playing Shadowlands… for the moment I have zero interest in anything going on in this game. It is sad because I dearly love my Facepull family, but for now at least I am loving them from a distance. There is just something about World of Warcraft at the moment that I find a massive turn off, because I have tried to log in a few times but jettison in a perpendicular trajectory really quickly. Battle for Azeroth really did ruin the game for me, and I guess I hope it is not a permanent condition because I still have fond memories of how much I enjoyed Legion.

Summary

So there we have it, like I said it is a bit of a bloodbath because I have whittled down the regularly playing list to two titles. I am pretty sure this is the smallest it has ever been since the implementation of it. For now I am very much on a kick of not playing MMORPGs, but time will tell how long that will actually last.

Regularly Playing: January 2020 Edition

January 31, 2020 by Belghast

To Those Remaining

To The New and Returning

Ships Passing in The Night

To Those Departing

Summary

Games of the Decade: 2019

December 30, 2019 by Belghast

Over the last few weeks I have been doing this series where I recount the games that were important to me during a specific year of the last decade. We have now reached the end and it is time for me to talk about this past year… a year that I seemed to have way more issue narrowing down than the others. I guess as time passes your thoughts galvanize around specific games as they stand the test of time. For this past year everything feels very fresh in my mind, and as a result I just look out at a great year full of a lot of games I enjoyed. For those who have not been following along, here are all of the other posts and links.

Now let’s dig into what is going to prove to be the longest of the posts. I am bad at whittling things down. Let’s start off with a few honorable mentions.

Anthem

This game is a controversial title for this year, and I have a bunch of mixed feelings about it. It was very much an important game to me this year, but also serves as the biggest disappointment. I had been tracking this title since it first showed up at E3 with what was apparently a cobbled together demo reel that did not represent anything close to what the game was like at that moment. We found all of this out after the failed release of the title thanks to a Jason Schreier tell all piece about just how bad the development cycle went. Why I am conflicted is that I loved the game that was there. I loved jetting around in an Iron Man suit and firing down heavy ordinance while bopping things in the head with my electrified mace and then detonating bombs as I jetted away. I want this game to find its feet and turn into what I hope it could be. For the time being however I am not playing it and based on my friends list… no one is given I added hundreds of people from one of the discord communities. I hope in 2020 it can have a resurrection story we will all be proud of, but for now I am giving it an Honorable Mention footnote.

Kind Words

This one is also going on the honorable mention list, largely because it is not really a game at all. It is more of a social experiment where you are placed behind the veil of anonymity and asked to say nice things to strangers. The funny thing is… this almost single-handedly dismantles the greater internet fuckwad theory, which assumes that anonymity leads to toxic behavior. This experience places you in a sandbox and directs you to say nice things…. and it works. I spent a few days messing around with this thoroughly charming “game” and have not touched it since. However if you need something good and pure in your life I highly suggest you checking it out.

Baba Is You

For the first real contender of the year we have the insanely charming puzzle game called Baba Is You. The game is deceptively simple and requires you to screw around with what feels like programming logic until you reach the “Is Win” condition. This involves you pushing things around until you can move whatever the “Is You” object over to the “Is Win” condition. This all sounds like madness I am sure until you have played it, but the end result is countless hours of making your way through puzzles that sometimes make you feel like a god damned genius when you finally arrive at the solution. I never quite beat the game but I often times wander away from things when a shiny object enters my field of view. I did however spend an awful lot of time playing this and enjoying every moment.

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

Remember that whole rule I set out and then violated about not adding expansions to a list? Yeah I am breaking it again because Shadowbringers is quite possibly the best Final Fantasy game I have ever played and also quite possibly the best JRPG. I was enthralled the entire time this expansion was expanding before me and there were several times where it made leaps that I had no clue was going to happen. It also tells a fresh story that I had not really seen in a game like this before that while it in itself is a bunch of remixed elements we have seen, is presented to make something fresh, I still don’t want to dive into the spoilers of this story because it is that damned good and if you have not experienced it before then you absolutely need to do so. Post launch I have fallen back out of habit of logging into Final Fantasy XIV, but at some point I will come back and gobble up the story goodness that has arrived in my passing.

The Outer Worlds

A running theme of this year is about wish fulfillment, and one of the things I have wanted for years is a spiritual successor to Fallout New Vegas. I like Fallout 3 and 4, and think they are good at doing the things that they are doing… but I will always have a deep burning fire in my heart for New Vegas. Outer Worlds is a completely new property set in a dystonian universe where capitalism has gone to its absolute furthest possible nefarious ends. It is a time of monolithic MegaCorps, but they are presented not in a cyberpunk future but instead of one of a space western that draws heavily upon similar genres like the Firefly series. What makes this game shine are its characters and the writing that brings them to life. Parvati is pure and precious and I will fight to my last breath to keep her and her fledgling relationship with Junlei safe.

Jedi Fallen Order

I am being completely honest here that this is a game I never expected to see the light of day. EA has had this habit of killing off anything that looked like a great new Star Wars game in favor of trying to create lootbox hell holes. When this was first announced, I fully expected it to either turn out to be vapor ware or get cancelled. I cannot explain how happy I am to be wrong, and to have what is seemingly the first “Soulsian” game that I have really loved. I am not sure what it is about the specific blend of elements but this is one of the best games of this decade, not just this year. The variable difficulty is key, but so is the way that this game makes you feel like you actually are a Jedi with lots of interesting tools to solve problems as they arise. BD-1 also is the best dog in video games ever, and I want a droid buddy that will sit on my shoulder as I go on adventures.

For the longest time I have not really known if World of Warcraft was just a better game back in those early years or if I was simply viewing the world through rose colored glasses. While I have enjoyed a lot of the quality of life improvements, there was something lost along the way and Classic shone a spotlight on that with blaring clarity. While I am not actively playing it for various reasons, I fully expect to return at some day and push my character the rest of the way to 60. I enjoyed this game with my whole being right up until the point that the whole Hong Kong nonsense started and I felt bad for supporting anything made by Blizzard. I’ve stepped down off of that soap box and made my peace, but it was just enough time to knock me out of the rhythm of playing this game. It is still a thoroughly enjoyable experience and I hope I can figure out how to make my brain crave again.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

We are wrapping things up for the year with a bit more of that wish fulfillment. Castlevania Symphony of the Night is quite possibly my favorite game to have ever been developed. So when I heard in 2015 that Koji Igarashi was going to be creating a brand new franchise that would serve as the spiritual successor to this game I loved, I was ready to throw a near infinite amount of money at the screen. At that time it was slotted for a 2017 release and while the game ultimately was two years late, the delays were worth every moment. This is an example of a creator and team listening to the fans and going back to the drawing board to create better ways of delivering the end product. The only blemish however is the Switch release which ultimately still lags behind the quality of the other available platforms. The game itself is a masterpiece of the Metroidvania genre and introduces a brand new setting with its own deeply interesting lore and characters. I am hooked and I am hoping that the game as a whole made enough of a splash to warrant many future adventures. That’s it folks… the end of my series on the games of this past decade. What are your thoughts, and what are some of the games that you felt I missed along the way? Drop me a note in the comments.