World of Warcraft, the king of the MMORPG goes a long way back. After 2 years, Blizzard launches its 7th expansion. The last expansion “Legion” brought some cool things into the World of Warcraft such as Artifact weapons, scenarios, world quests and of course a new class: The Demon Hunter. All of these new features made the online world even better and a lot more enjoyable. It brought a lot of new players to the game, but it also kept a lot of the veteran players interested for quite some time. Legion’s story forced the horde and the alliance to team-up against the Burning Legion, bearers of the “Felfire”. With the new expansion “Battle for Azeroth”, these bonds have been broken yet again and the game is returning to its roots, the conflict between Horde and Alliance.
“Battle for Azeroth”, the new expansion of WoW begins when Sylvanas, the new Warchief of the Horde burns down the World Tree known as Teldrassil. Teldrassil’s branches also covered the city Darnassus which is the home of the Night Elves. This is the place where a lot of living players started their journey as a Night Elf in service of the Alliance. Burning down the city caused a lot of innocents to die and is seen as one of the worst attacks in Wow’s history. King Anduin of the Alliance sees this attack only targeted at innocents and wants to hold Sylvanas responsible for her actions. This leads up to the attack on Lordaeron and so begins the story of the latest expansion…
This new chapter within the WoW universe expands the living world of Azeroth with 2 new areas to explore namely Zandalar (Horde) and Kul Tiras (Alliance). The Horde will venture to Zandalar in the hopes of finding new allies against the Alliance, The Zandalari trolls. Jaina Proudmoore goes to her homeland to redeem herself and hopefully win Kul Tiras faith by doing so. Within Zandalar, you’ll find the swamps of Nazmir, the hot desert of Vol’Dun and of course the jungles of Zuldazar. Kul Tiras includes Stormsong Valley, the coves of Tiragarde Sound and the woods of Drustvar.
“Hats off, Blizzard! Amazingly done.”
All these areas will help you level fast to level 120 and once the leveling is done, you’ll be able to do daily quests on the opposite continent to get some influence within the region. In the beginning, there aren’t that many Flight points to use, to go from point A to B. You’ll be running around with your mounts most of the time, however, once your faction’s war effort is rising, you’ll gain more influence and you’ll be able to unlock outposts and footholds that can help you traverse the opposite continent with a bit more ease. The harder you work for a certain zone, the more advantages you’ll gain.
You’ll also form a war party within the game and as the story progresses you’ll unlock a post-game campaign that’s called the War Campaign. This kind of questing is based around the conflict between the different factions. You’ll have to face some of the leaders of the enemy’s faction and make some important decisions to get some advantages for your side in the war. This campaign must be completed if you want to unlock some major features of the expansion like War Fronts, traveling to the other side, dungeons, allied races, … and many more.
Each side works around the same “mechanics” but due to the different areas, it still feels like you’re playing a new game. This is also because of the fact that the different zones tell their own story within a certain setting. Even though the questing is a lot more of the same old, same old, all of these quests suited the environment perfectly and therefore feel interesting enough to keep the player going. These zones and quests are some of the best that Blizzard has ever created. Blizzard has maintained the same world system as Legion and it still works. There’s one big island which is a collaboration of different “zones” that contains their own hazards, animal life, and flora. They all sync up great and thus create this interesting environment that you want to explore and learn more about its inhabitants. The conversion between different areas are fluent and it feels “natural”.
“Blizzard manages to keep the daily quests fun and rewarding.”
Another thing that feels very natural is the main story and how it’s being presented. Blizzard has chosen the right direction for the game’s cinematics. Throughout your gameplay experience, a couple of scenes will pop up and it just has a great impact on your immersion of the game and the connection with the game’s characters. Even though the game’s graphics system is outdated, Blizzard manages to create convincing dialogues and scenes that set the mood right. I still can’t believe that Blizzard hasn’t pushed this new “cinematic” system further into the real world and made a World of Warcraft animation film. Hats off, Blizzard! Amazingly done.
Just like Legion, the game has World Quests, this daily questing system will keep the players coming back for a while. This system offers repeatable quests that can help with increasing their reputation for a certain faction and get some new gear instead. These World Quests take a lot from the “normal” quests but make it more simple that it doesn’t feel time-consuming. Don’t get me wrong, it takes a lot of time to grind reputation for a certain faction, but Blizzard manages to keep the daily quests fun and rewarding.
The game also features a new mode called Island Expeditions. These expeditions are different islands that are randomized filled with quests and enemies. The goal is to fill up a meter, faster than an opposing team, in order for you to win. You can fill up your meter by completing quests and killing enemies. These expeditions can be completed on different difficulty modes and with or without friends. It also has a “Weekly Quest” kind of system to make it repeatable. This game mode is definitely a special one and will win people over or scare people away. It’s an interesting game mode that cannot be won unless you’ve thought about a certain approach to handle the expedition. You have to figure out a plan or you won’t get the win, it’s as simple as that. If the team isn’t cooperating, chances are high, you’ll lose. I also think that some of these enemies need to be tweaked to make the game mode a lot more successful. This mode will definitely be frustrating for some as you need to do some of these expeditions to progress the story and if you don’t have the right team, it’ll take ages before a player finds this system enjoyable. However, once you got the right team and a plan, you’ll be able to complete this expedition without any delay. The quests are great to do but some of them do become repetitive very quickly. Hopefully, Blizzard will improve this mode and make it a lot more accessible to players.
Legion’s artifact system was a great addition to the franchise. Being able to hold these artifacts and evolve them to your liking, was a blast to play. Unfortunately, the end of the Legion goes along the end of your artifact, you’re only left with a prop which’s look can be altered. But… Battle for Azeroth does implement the use of a totally new artifact, The Heart of Azeroth. This artifact is a medallion that collects Azerite to power itself. You can pair The Heart of Azeroth with Azerite gear to make them even more powerful. The more power your Heart of Azeroth absorbs, the more powerful gear you can wear. This power also enables you to gain a lot more powerful traits that’ll help you with your battles. The Heart of Azeroth is a great way to replace the Artifact system from Legion but I do feel like that the traits of the Artifact weapons were a lot more interesting than the traits from Azeroth’s Heart. Your Artifact weapon and its abilities were linked with your character’s class and the Heart of Azeroth feels a bit “dull” sometimes. The hearts bonuses are most likely based on giving stats boost and buffs.
Conclusion:
Battle for Azeroth is a great expansion and a lot of these new features feel like a great addition to the World of Warcraft. However, some of these features like the Heart of Azeroth and Expeditions need a bit more tweaking before it’ll be evenly enjoyable as the previous expansion. Players have a lot of things to do and the hardcore players will probably already be burned out on what the expansion has to offer. The questing hasn’t changed too much and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing but sometimes people feel like World of Warcraft is becoming a bit too grindy. It’s great to see Blizzard stepping a bit more out of there comfort zone by experimenting with new mechanics. World of Warcraft is an ever-changing world and I can’t wait to see what Blizzard’s up to in the future. Yes, the expansion has some flaws and isn’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean the game isn’t enjoyable. Hopefully, this expansion is a minor setback in what’s to come.
