Coming Soon: Legion

Yeah, so I figure that by the time you read this, my moral resolve will have crumbled and I'll be the owner of a copy of Legion. In the meantime, I'm happily bopping around killing rats and clicking glowies. After I dinged 98 a little more than a third of the way into the quests in Spires of Arak, I packed up and headed to Nagrand. This was done for a number of reasons.

First, I'd like for my quest rewards to at least keep pace with my level. Crazy, eh? Second, I'm a completionist at heart, so I know I'll come back and do the rest of the quests at some point... along with the optional missions and treasure collecting. (As an aside, my excitement over finding the hidden treasures waned considerably once I found out you can just buy maps that show where they are all hidden.) Third, I've always had a soft spot for Nagrand: the vast open expanses, the gentle rolling hills, the stupid poop quests. Well, maybe they weren't all pleasant memories, but I did want to see what the terrain looked like. Fourth and most importantly, I really, really hate bird people.


"Really, Strev? In bird culture, this is considered a dick move."

Nagrand sailed along beautifully and I wasn't disappointed. It was "nostalgia done right" as I picked off clefthoofs (clefthooves?), talbuk and elek like in the days of olde.The scenery was bright and uncluttered, with just enough mountainous terrain to piss me off mildly. I thoroughly enjoyed the Throne of the Elements section particularly, despite it being entirely devoid of unique mechanics. It was just really well laid out, in my opinion. The zone was significantly less linear than previous ones and about halfway through I hit 100.

Now where did I put that credit card?

Days of Future Past

Near as I can gather, this expansion takes places in an alternate timeline where the orcs didn't do a kegstand with Mannoroth's blood, so there's no corruption by the Burning Legion, no Outlands-style desolation, and presumably the British won the Revolutionary War. Instead of The Horde, Garrosh forms an "Iron Horde", which presumably ends with a kitchen-themed coliseum.


Today's mystery ingredient: Murloc!


Being a lifelong Doctor Who fan, I can cheerfully ignore all manner of plot holes for the sake of entertainment. As such, I'm not going to pick at the plot threads, because I'm sure the entire cosmic sweater is held together by suspension of disbelief. So, ok...our present is being assaulted by an alternate past which we've established didn't happen and we're here because reasons. Still content is content.

The main problem I have with WoW's content is that it gets devoured at a ludicrously speedy rate. The level spread for Warlords of Draenor is 90-100. There's seven zones presumably chock full of things to do. By the time I completely cleared the first zone, Shadowmoon Valley, I was level 94 and had nearly outleveled the first dungeon before I could experience it. Finished Gorgrond at 95.5 and Talador right at 97...in a day.

Bear in mind, this is without doing much of the "optional zone content". Certain parts of the maps contain quests that are accepted by moving into them-- usually of the "kill 20 rats" variety, but they reward a decent chunk of xp and gold, apparently so people can level faster without having to, you know, enjoy the game. Yes, I know there's a large contingent of people who believe the game doesn't start until they get that last "ding", but I'd rather enjoy the ride myself. Things have definitely changed since the early days when each level was a slow, uphill climb. I slowed my rolling ball of questing hurt long enough to take on the first two dungeons, Bloodmaul Slag Mines and Iron Docks. It seems as though they overhauled dungeon looting; there were no need/greed rolls. Each person was allowed to loot only things they could use.

On an unrelated note, I really like that they seem to be rewarding exploration. Several times my searching off the beaten path has led to a hidden treasure that was an improvement over my existing questing gear.

Most of my crafts are no longer locked at level 600; random drops off monsters start short quests that end with a reward of unlocking higher skill levels. From an "in universe" perspective, this is a lot more satisfying. From a "will need to level up my alts later" perspective, this strikes me as a massive pain in the ass. I'm curious to see if this methodology is retained in Legion.

A Pocket Full of Noodles

After speaking to The Guy Who Starts the Draenor Quests, I hopped through the swirling portal and began my theme park adventure in earnest.

Disclaimer: My general devil-may-care attitude towards Warcraft's lore hasn't changed in the past decade. I recognize some big names and will occasionally think "Hey, that's the dude/chick/dragon who did something I probably should know from something", but I've never actually cared enough to let things like "facts", "names", and accuracy impede my narratives. That may turn some of you off. I'm ok with that. Just clench your jaws, Pop Tart, and go to bed smug knowing that you're a better person than I for knowing the name of Stalvan Mistmantle's love.

On the other side of the portal I was treated with a series of "Welcome to Draenor" quests that required very little skill. Given that I was already a dozen shots of tequila in to my afternoon with no idea how to play my class optimally anymore, this wasn't as much of a nuisance as it would be normally. Fortunately, arcane mages still have all of the subtlety and nuance as a facially-applied sledgehammer, so I quickly got back in the groove of casual desolation. As expected, the first few "trash" quest rewards were far nicer than the epics I had left from the previous expansion, so I wasted no time making yesterday's photo obsolete, but horror came when I opened my inventory for the first time.

My bags were laden with noodles, fish, and a dozen types of cooked food. The treasures of a forgotten era vied with various dusts, elixirs, and toys for precious pack space. I was loathe to begin flushing things, fearful of accidentally discarding something of great value when it occurred to me that the odds of a consumable from two expansions back being worth more the gold from any single quest turn in was pretty slim. I'd price check the more esoteric garbage when the opportunity presents itself again, but for now I'd have plenty of space just from tossing the "obvious".

The second surprise came when I checked the mailbox and found a couple pages worth of notices. Apparently I'm still getting Brews of the Month and the Bottle of Binary Brew gave me a smile. Aside from that were a few notes from quest-givers who had given me their change-of-address notifications and a few general announcements of replacement toys and currencies... then I got to a notice that my Justice Points had been converted at some point at a rate of 47 silver each and.... woah.


Thank you, Easter bunny!

I'm still dreading looking in my bank or going through my alts. I'm going to need to steel myself for that.

In the meantime, after finishing the "Draenor 101" line, I'm left at my brand spanking new garrison which, as I understand it, most players develop a love/hate relationship with. For the unfamiliar, this is a little parcel of land that is "kinda like housing" in that players develop it by wasting time and money. What I haven't quite figured out is why I'd want to. Yes, there are a few little perks (like "horses go faster in Draenor") you get with certain upgrades, but I'm not out to impress anyone so overall I don't see this being a thing on which I'm going to spend too much effort. I'm very well aware I may live to eat those words, but at least I won't have to with a side dish of three year old noodles.

"Honey! I'm home!"

What can I say? It's been years. To make a long story short, a bunch of guys from the office have returned to the Altar of Blizzard with the new expansion and said I should revisit it. "I just don't think it's work $15 to re-up for a month, not to mention the box price. That's money I could blow on Pokecoins or, well, something that isn't WoW." Now, despite the time stamp on the last blog entry, I played a couple of months in Pandaland, long enough to get Strev through all of the available content and a few of the alts halfway through maybe level 87 before boredom of the daily grind set in and I left for other pastures.

"C'mon, Strev. You get the Draenor expansion for free and you can pay for your monthly sub with gold!" Now that perked my interest. When I left, I was sitting on a vault that periodically had to be sprayed for swimming cartoon ducks, a month's sub at 35k gold or so wasn't going to break me or even put that big of a dint in the ol' war chest. I rationalized that Draenor would keep me busy for a while and then after I'd sucked every last drop of juice from that lemon, I'd decide whether or not Legion was worth my effort. I mean, I know I'm going to break down and get it, but for now I can pretend. Besides, I'm always a sucker for peer pressure.

Well, I'd never uninstalled the game from my last run. Of course, I never bothered to keep it up to date either so, let's see how big of a downl--- 34 gig?! Yikes. Bear in mind the fastest speed my ISP, AT&T, provides borders on 3rd world speeds, so it will take days to patch the whole damn thing. As an aside, the main thing that keeps me from revisiting other MMOs I've enjoyed in the past to see how they've come along, for better or ill, is the massive downloads required just to pop in and say "Boo." Fortunately, Blizzard has the deal where you don't have to download everything in order to play and the portion I already had on my drive was almost enough to be considered "playable", if I didn't mind the occasional lack of graphical assets and giant delays while transitioning to areas. Good enough. I'd be going in blind after years "on the outside". Let's see...


A Fashionista I am not.

In short order I found myself in the middle of a panda commune surrounded by NPCs. I had no addons, talents, guild, friends, or clues to what was going on. After picking some talents almost at random and sorting out some basic spells to my toolbar, I hopped in a portal to Stormwind, determined to at least get my bearings. After stopping wistfully by the auctionhouse just to say "Hi" to Jaxom and Fitch, I tooled over to the Inscriptionist to see I didn't qualify for a skill increase yet. Fine. Crafting for a previous expansion isn't exactly a pressing necessity, so I'll figure it out later. As predicted, the noticeboard next to the AH gave me the breadcrumb to head to the Blasted Lands and begin our adventure proper.

So, for those of you reading along, new fans and old (who just happened to check this blog and discover it is suddenly active again), welcome to the continuing adventures of Strev, Gnome of the Wild Frontier.

Now let's go out there and do something stupid!