Blizzard Entertainment announced its next expansion for World of Warcraft at Gamescom, and it left me a bit not necessarily underwhelmed but close to it.
World of Warcraft: Legion follows the current story that Warlords of Draenor started by having the ever hated Gul'dan unleash the 'Burning Legion' or some really bad demon guys who have been around well, forever.
To make a long story short, for multiple expansions, as well as the original game 'Warcraft' was mostly dedicated to the Burning Legion trying to invade and take over the world. This legion was created by the titan Sargeras, who like most of the big characters in the Warcraft universe started off essentially good, but overtime turned out to be pretty bad. *Cough*Neltharion*Cough*
This expansion follows suit by continuing the fight against the hordes of armies that Sargeras controls.With the help of some friends new and old we can overcome any obstacle sent at us. But what does this expansion really bring for us?
1. We get a new 'Hero Class'!
Much like Death Knights in Wrath of the Lich King, Legion brings us the Demon Hunter. No, not Diablo's style demon hunter, the Illidan Stormrage type.
Yeah, that guy, The Betrayer, the one who carried the ever famous war-glaives.
Demon Hunters, who have long been locked away in the Vault of the Wardens are called upon to help fight against the Legion. The class itself has multiple different customizations when being created, and since they are a Hero Class they will start at a very high level to allow players to level with their friends. This also allows for people to hit speed up to level cap and do raids and dungeons right away.
There will be two specs for this class.
Vengence - The Tank Spec
Havoc - DPS Spec
Not all the skills have been released for this class, but more information will be revealed later.
2. The broken Isles
10,000 years before The Sundering an unknown elven land was sitting off into the distance, when the land broke it forged the broken isles which holds the tomb of Sargeras. With the help of Gul'dan the Broken Isles is turned into the biggest war zone that has ever come to Azeroth.
Each zone has it's own major story line, and is discussed here in Blizzards Gamescon presentation.
3. Ancient Weapons
These are class specific weapons that each player has a chance to get.
Maw of the Damned is the Death Knight specific weapons and it doesn't end there!
The AshBringer, this weapon has been around since WoW's original release. Players know this weapon, they fought for this weapon, and they did whatever they could to get it before it was taken out of the game.
Now each one of these weapons has customizations, meaning, they can be enchanted with runes to upgrade the damage or other specs of the weapon, and also it can have other visual depictions of the same weapon.
4, Level Cap of 110
As of right now the current level cap is 100. Pretty self explanatory, you get an expansion, you level and then start farming dungeons.
5. New Dungeons and Raids
Tons of new dungeons, according to the conference the devs are working on having a relatively large number of dungeons compared to the last expansions so the players will have more to do. This includes level up dungeons as well as level cap dungeons.
So far two Raids have been announced, the first being The Emerald Nightmare, and the second Suramar Palace where the final boss will definitely be Gul'dan.
6. Class-specific Order Halls and followers
This one is a bit on the fence, I don't want to say time management style, but at the same time I want to say time management. Until more details surface about what is actually done with your followers I'm going to leave it at this.
- You lead the Class Order.
- Order Halls are a base of operations for your class. You share them with other players of your class. Only members of your class can enter this area, similar to the Death Knight starting area.
- Halls will be located in thematically appropriate areas.
- Shamans in a cave near the Maelstrom.
- Paladins will be under Light's Hope Chapel.
- Warlocks will be on a Legion Portal World.
- You get special quests and work on your Artifact weapon here.
- Your Hall has Champions, an evolution of the followers. This time around you aren't raising an army, but a small group. Some will be established characters. There will be more integration with the world. They won't do things instead of you, but help you to accomplish things. They discover an area for you to investigate. You work alongside them and with them rather than sending them out on missions. (mmo-champion.com summary)
7. Revamped PvP progression system
- Prestige Ranks - You can reset your honor level and do it again for cosmetic rewards. This is extra rewards for players that do a lot of PvP.
8. Improved transmogrification system (More Information coming later)
9. Improved social features (More Information coming later)
If you would like to see a full transcript visit here.
( THE FOLLOWING IS AN OPINION)
I feeling like there somethings missing from this expac and I can't quite put a finger on it. I mean, according to lore, Blizzard is actually doing okay, though some of the things like Archmage Khadgar having Mediv's legendary staff Atiesh, and having yet to be explained still bother me apparently. For everyone else, I've seen nothing but complaints about reusing old models and Blizzard getting lazier as time goes on. Well honestly, in my opinion, what other game has lasted this long? Maybe the guys working are finally starting to realize that even with each expansion they are losing more of a customer base then they wanted to.
Maybe this is just a precaution, yes they are still producing content, but instead of being such an attention getter to a new crowd their trying to keep who still believe in the game interested and active. No matter what they have a fan base and for the guys to come out and say, "We're still doing what we love, but we had to make a few changes." Might be just breathe of fresh air to everybody.
As for me, I'm probably still going to pick of the Collector's Edition like I have done with every since Blizzard game, but it seems like I might not be anywhere as serious about raiding or instancing like I have in the past, and surely I can see myself taking a hiatus for awhile until I grow bored and six months later activate my account again.
Until more details come out I'm outta here.
All photos were taken from blizzgc.com an external link of Battle.net.
~Tisnight