Good Morning Friends. I had a bit of a rough night and even a bit of rough sleep. After the workday, I just felt drained and had made plans to hang with a friend that I ultimately backed out of. Instead, I wound up crashing on the sofa with my laptop piddling around on my tiny Sylvari Engineer. There is something deeply relaxing about just chilling out and working on map completion and subsequently leveling as a result. There is something about allowing yourself to go with the flow of events and knocking out renown hearts. It is moments like this that make me realize that I changed as a gamer more than the game itself changed. There is a time when this would not have been nearly as compelling as I found it last night, where it would have felt pointless. However, that pointlessness is in part what my brain has latched onto, or more the wide variety of things that I can do… but feel zero pressure to actually do.
This is going to be a bit of an odd post jumping around between topics. I am extremely ready for the finale of Moon Knight, which I realize at the time of writing this… already exists and I could watch it, but obviously have not had a chance to. I have greatly enjoyed this show, and I am wondering if it is because I was already deeply familiar with the character beforehand. I had a conversation the other day with my recently retired former boss, and he is not getting it at all. He said he is holding on to hope that everything will make sense in the end because he is ultimately committed to marvel franchises. However, from the first moments of the show, I am been hooked, in part I guess because I understand that character of Moon Knight is ultimately someone who is deeply fragmented and such an unreliable narrator. I am very interested to see where this character goes and how it interacts with the larger universe.
Another thing that I am really looking forward to is Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. What has been lacking with Marvel since Endgame is a broader sense of direction. What made the first sequence of movies work is that it felt like we were building towards something and that there was a larger conflict at play that ultimately came to a head in the Infinity War. We’ve lacked that sense of purpose and forward momentum, and I am feeling like Multiverse of Madness is going to give us that. This is going to be the match that lights the fuse on the next conflict, and I had a conversation with Thalen yesterday and almost agree with him. His current theory is that this is all leading to Secret Wars 2015, or at least a version of that story played out with Kang instead of the Beyonder. I could absolutely see this happening and whatever the case the end results are going to see the version of X-Men from the Animated series merged into the MCU.
Lastly, yesterday was the reveal of the oft-discussed “Warcraft Mobile Game”, and I have to say I am a little disappointed. I think the problem is that for me when someone says “Warcraft” I think “World of” not “Orcs & Humans”. Sure I played the original dos game, was really big into Warcraft II and making “PUDs”… and significantly LAN battles, but that is effectively ancient history at this point and no longer seems relevant. “Warcraft” has meant an MMORPG for the last eighteen years and my brain went to maybe them creating some new mobile MMORPG that took the best bits of WoW and translated them to a new phone experience. That is not what we got, and instead, it looks mostly like a Clash of Clans like game experience focused on the slapstick side of the Warcraft setting similar to Hearthstone.
That is “fine” and I am sure there is an audience for it. It is decidedly not really a game for me, however. I don’t have a lot of nostalgia for the RTS genre, and for me, it sort of felt like an interim format that was ultimately replaced by other sorts of real-time interaction like ARPGs. However there are a lot of people who seem to like Clash of Clans and the other derivatives that have been released over the years, so I fully expect that this is going to follow that format mixed in with a “gacha” system for pulling new heroes to lead your army. I am certain it will make Blizzard money and there are whales out there that will love “pulling” for this game. Mobile games always feel like the free sample that you get at a warehouse store… with the eventual premium price tag being way more than I want to spend on that enjoyment.
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Good Morning Friends. I am going to admit this is probably going to be a bit of a melancholy post, and I want to give you a heads up as not to deflate your enjoyment. There are many riding the hype train from yesterdays announcement of the Dragonflight expansion for World of Warcraft, and I don’t want to do anything to diminish your joy. Lord knows that Blizzard gamers right now need a little bit of joy in their life given everything that has happened with the company and their flagship game over the last several years. Lets start off with just the facts. If you did not catch any of the coverage yesterday there is a slew of videos to watch on the official World of Warcraft channel.
For your viewing enjoyment and ease of use I am going to link them all here:
At a high level a brand new expansion was announced set in the Dragon Isles, and area that the player has not visited since Warcraft II (and even that was likely non-canonical). With it comes a brand new race for those who really like scalesonas, the Dracthyr. This is going to create a bit of a weird balancing situation because with them comes a brand new class that is locked to that race as well. The Evoker can be a DPS or a healer and blends the magic of the various dragonflights into its spells. I’m personally not terribly interested in playing a dragon and have had more than my fair share of opportunities be it the actual dragons in Horizon, or the Sarnak in Everquest II. Before I get into more editorialization, lets go with a quick rundown of everything that was discussed.
New Expansion, Level Cap bumps up to 70
New Race/Class combo of Dracthyr/Evoker
2 Specs – Healing and DPS
Hero Class – Starts at 58
Wears Mail Armor
Dragon Isles – 4 leveling zones, 1 new starter zone for Dracthyr
Dragonriding
Dragon mount that levels up over time and gains new abilities
Customizable with collectable bits of armor and such
Talent Tree Rework – Time will tell if it is freedom of choice or just the illusion
UI Overhaul – More customizable and cleaner
Profession Revamp
Ability to create an order to have something crafted by another player
That folks is World of Warcraft Dragonflight in a nutshell. Now I guess it is time for me to talk about my reaction to it. I will admit that I found myself looking forward to this reveal yesterday. World of Warcraft is much like a bad breakup that never really goes away, and I wanted to see a glimmer of hope. I’ve talked before about how Blizzcon is this concentration of nostalgia and joy that ultimately makes me resub to the game almost every single time. This is especially true when it comes with the announcement of a new expansion. I have this history of coming back in at the tail end of an expansion and coasting on the good vibes until the launch of the new content. Prior to Legion I leveled everything to the then cap of 100, and did something similar at the tail end of legion with my horde characters preparing them for Battle For Azeroth.
The weird thing is… it isn’t that ANYTHING I saw was bad. In fact I think Dragonflight is probably going to be a universally good expansion. There is a part of me that would have been super excited by this reveal. The problem is as I watched it yesterday felt nothing. It summoned forth the same amount of emotional attachment that I would have while watching the evening news. I have no clue what changed but I am starting to fear that I am too far gone to be revived. I know there are a lot of people who poured their hearts and souls into this expansion reveal and I think for the most part they did a good job. I expected SOME reaction to the news… but I just sort of feel hollow about it. This is in part why I tried to give the warning at the beginning of this post, because I do not want to suck the joy out of the room.
While I was not personally feeling it, I do think that the way in which the information was delivered was probably a good call. Blizzard had this bombastic rockstar persona built up over so many years… and we have learned that with that came a lot of exceptionally bad behavior within the company. It is sobering to see what a Blizzard reveal looks like when it isn’t trying to borrow the energy from a Jolt Cola ad from the 80s. I get the general feeling that the Dragon Isles are going to feel a bit like Northrend, which admittedly was one of my favorite expansions. It is a time of expeditions instead of military conquest, and it sounds like the scientists and archeologists are going to be leading the way. This is all really good, and a positive step forward for the game. I just wish that I felt something about all of this.
I signed up for beta like I have always done, and if I get access I will try it out and see if maybe the reality can sway me where the marketing material has not. The panel format does give the impression that the reigns of Blizzard are being taken over by the competent adults in the room and being taken away from the abusive aspects. I am really hoping that this is true behind the scenes because I have so many friends who work for this company in one aspect or another that I want to see it succeed. I am just uncertain if the fate of this company and my desires still align. I don’t want to give the impression that anything about Dragonflight was bad, just that for whatever reason I am not feeling it. That is not to say that will not change over time, but I do wonder if the magic is gone for me.
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Good Morning Friends! Thanks so much for all the comments yesterday. I always feel weird talking about “milestones”, like I am being overly self congratulatory. I honestly got up yesterday and struggled a bit as to whether or not to make that post or throw out a new Mixtape Monday, which incidentally will be released next Monday. I am still very deep into Guild Wars 2 and enjoying the heck out of it. I’ve wrapped up Living World Season 4 and am now chipping away at Living World Season 5 aka the Icebrood Saga. This season definitely feels like more than your average Living World Season, but not quite an expansion. It does make me wonder if there was a conversation happening at the studio about maybe just doing seasonal content going forward rather than expansion drops.
In other news I have finished crafting my Perfected Nightsword and am on to the third Twilight collection. This now involves me doing a bunch of content that I do not love… jumping puzzles and gimmicky mini-dungeons and then collecting “Gloom” in specific places. So far I have only collected Gloom from Tequatl’s lair, Shadow Behemoth, and one darkness themed mini-dungeon in Dredgehaunt Cliffs. So I have much work to go before I can craft my Dusk and begin trying to sort out what I have left to do before I can turn it into Twilight. Huge thanks to both Nogmara and Tamrielo for helping me with the Mithril because in total it came in just under 4000 ingots to finish the second step of this process. The expensive part of it was buying all of the Deldrimor Steel Ingots that I needed, but at least this part is done. The last step is more labor intensive but should not have near the gold cost associated with it.
The other day I happened to be running Tequatl early in the morning, because happenstance had made me miss the reset run the evening before. Low and behold I happened to notice that both Ammo and Sol were running it as well. I snapped a photo of me with Ammo because it honestly is not super often that we are both in the same area at the same time. I am getting super anxious to share with you her latest creation. As is often the case I have been getting periodic updates showing off progress… and I kinda griefed her this time with the inclusion of the raven mantle. However she has made short work of that challenge and it looks freaking awesome in drawn form. This is maybe going to be my favorite “Bel” that she has drawn.
Lastly I started tooling around on a Sylvari Engineer. There is something I found humorous about a plant person that is a gearhead. Originally I had a Charr Engineer, but honestly… I have to admit that as much as I like them as a people… I don’t love playing as one. Charr have the whole Tauren problem for me where they feel extremely bulky and slow. This is probably ironic considering I am playing the “Big Human” as my primary character, but Norn at least have Human motions that feel quick and nimble for their size. Sylvari is something that I am coming to appreciate the longer I have played Guild Wars 2. At first I pegged them as “Plant Elves” and you know me and my general dislike of most Elves… but they are way more interesting than that. Maybe the interesting story arc of Caithe has turned me around on my feelings about them.
The weird thing about the World Boss teleport trinket from the Black Lion shop, is that it takes you to places you don’t really have any business being yet. One of these places is to fight Drakkar, an ice dragon deep in the Bjora Marches. It is interesting seeing how this story unfolds and I feel like I am on the cusp of finally reaching this fight on the narration. There are so many excellent touches with this content, like when I met the Wolf Spirit the game acknowledged that as a Norn I was pledged to the Bear spirit and that he is proud of me. I’ve also really enjoyed the Charr homeland zone and all of the weird stuff that the various Legions get up to there. Bjora Marches has lasted much longer than I originally expected it would, so I am very interesting to see what the next zone brings with it.
Lastly today is the date that the next World of Warcraft expansion is going to be revealed. While it has been sixteen months since I last played the game, I still find myself interested in what comes next. I have a feeling that it won’t be enough to draw me back to the fold, but I also feel like I have said that before many times. I did not love Battle for Azeroth and I bounced in less than a month from Shadowlands, so I am wondering if I am just done with this game. We will see if what comes next interests me at all.
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While I have not played World of Warcraft for well over a year at this point, it is still a game that I attempt to keep tabs on. We know for certain that we are going to get the reveal of the next expansion on April 19th thanks to a twitter post. For months however there have been a number of rumors about what this expansion might be called and what it actually entails flying around the internet. As is the case with most of them… it involved a lot of nonsense and wish fulfillment. However more recently a thread of what I believe to be truthful information has started to trickle up. Essentially there is a concurrence of information from WoWHead doing some data mining and a supposed leak from a print shop that point to the next expansion being called “Dragonflight”.
The above image is pulled from Reddit and represents what is supposedly a print shop where some marketing material is being printed. The thing is that is an exceptionally believable image to me, because I spent some time working in and around a few print shops and came through college at a very specific time where I trained on both offset printing and digital methods. When something leaks out of a print press… I generally believe it because in the chain of custody of art assets… that is always going to be the weakest link. Similarly back in the day the Warez kiddies used to get their hands on titles when they went to the disc duplication plants and the two problems share a similar root. Printing and disc manufacturing have very slim margins, and as a result they generally pay their employees really poorly.
While the management might try their best to keep a tight reign on the marketing material, there are going to be a bunch of folks who are effectively working for minimum wage that are in and around everything being printed. I have to be honest I remember doing something very similar to this regarding the Phantom Menace and sending out some marketing information to some friends. I thought it was largely harmless to give some friends a peek at what was effectively a single piece of artwork carved into four magazine covers. I am sure this leak probably started in a similar manner where someone was excited to be working on something so recognizable and once it is out on the internet… it spreads. I guess in thirteen days we will be able to tell for certain if this was in fact a real thing or not.
Then there are times when what is probably complete nonsense… happens to align with the artifacts that seem more legitimate. Back in February during the height of fake wow expansion news, a post was made over on MMO Champion outlining “World of Warcraft: Dragonflight”. I am significantly less certain about this information because it is entirely possible that the “fake leakers” slung enough word salad together to happen to guess the right name. There are a few pieces of this that I find interesting. Firstly the idea of having new “skins” for classes that change the appearance of the abilities without actually changing the mechanics. I think this is probably a good call because it lowers the new complexity of trying to balance another class but also gives everyone something new and shiny to strive for. Once a system like that had been tested and working, it is a possible source of future new content with a lower development barrier.
I do feel like whatever is coming next is going to feel a lot more like Legion because that is clearly the last point Blizzard released an expansion that was fairly universally loved. Both Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands have been major disappointments, and I expect the new expansion to feel like taking a step back and reassessing the path that the game is on. While Covenants draw lineage back to the Class Order hall, the “fun” was lost along the way. Another thing I find really interesting about this leak is the mention of no new level cap. I have to be honest I feel like maybe it is time for World of Warcraft to start growing horizontally rather than vertically. Granted this might just be me talking because I am playing an excessive amount of Guild Wars 2, but I do have to admit I greatly prefer the games with evergreen content to those with a strict progression path.
So essentially I am left in a place where I absolutely believe that the next expansion for World of Warcraft is going to be called Dragonflight, but that the information “leaked” to the forum… is probably less than accurate. World of Warcraft for me is like a bad break up that no matter how much time I spend out of the game… I cannot stop paying attention to it. It has been sixteen months since the last time I played the game, which incidentally is the longest time that I have ever not played World of Warcraft since its release in 2004. That said I wish the team and the game luck and hope that they can find their footing and start to claw the game back into fighting shape. I know I will be trying to tune in for the reveal on April 19th to see how much of this information was truthful.
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