Where did Jaina go?
That was my question while digging World of Warcraft new expansion, Battle for Azeroth . As a player of the Alliance, the first hour of the expansion dealt with the tragic story of Jaina Proudmoore, one of Warcraft's best-known characters. After betraying his father in the name of peace during the events of Warcraft III the new expansion sees Jaina address Kul & Tiras in a desperate attempt to reunite her people with the Alliance and face your past
It is the beginning of what could be an absorbing story, but instead unravels in a mess of tangled threads that reflect the biggest problems facing Battle for Azeroth . Many of the individual components of the game are great, but they do not intertwine perfectly and, sometimes, the game seems to forget about the blows and important characteristics of the plot a few hours after its presentation.
Recovering War in Warcraft. More. Again?
The battle for Azeroth is supposedly centered on the struggle between the Alliance and the Horde. Blizzard often revisits this central conflict when he needs to inject a shot of tension, but the impact of the war on the game is less than what the pre-launch advertising campaign would have you think.
The cinematics frame your visit to Kul & Tiras (or Zandalar, if you play the Horde) as part of an urgent bet to get support against the opposing faction. They torment you anticipating what is to come. However, that expectation will deflate when you realize that "what is to come" is a trio of warm main missions surrounded by a swarm of forgettable side quests.
Unlike previous expansions, Battle for Azeroth includes two island continents: the Alliance levels in Kul & Strips and the Horde levels in Zandalar. While there are a number of War Campaign missions that take you to the continent of the other faction, they are chains of short, mundane missions that encapsulate the general problems of the plot of the expansion. Everyone insists that there is a lot at stake, but they never feel good, because nothing they care about is at risk. Only the enemy will threaten you if you activate the "war mode", which activates open-world combat.
However, you probably will not turn it on. It can not be easily grouped with friends who have War Mode disabled, and most people who activate it move in groups. The characters that level themselves are mistakes that must crush the large and organized groups that roll through the landscape. Even fights between groups are little more than distractions. There is nothing to fight, and problems with the balance between class and team mean that many fights feel unilateral.
Everyone insists that there is a lot at stake, but they never feel good, because nothing they care about is at risk. [19659011] The void left by the opposite side is hardly filled by the minor villains in each zone. They are predictable, youthful and never feel like a serious threat, surprisingly, given how much we have to lose according to the recent events of the game. The Burning of Teldrassil, part of the story before the expansion expansion, puts players on a doomed mission to save civilians from being burned alive. Now, weeks later, players plow through the skies on a noble adventure to bomb pirates with shit from parrots.
However, we must go back in the stories told in missions, and it is impossible to deny that the new zones are precious and thematic. The toughest critics of the game ridiculed it for a long time as a "theme park" game, but those themes are diverse and performed brilliantly. The main story of Drustvar, which focuses on suppressing the natives and hunting witches, is so unoriginal that it looks like a test-run of Blizzard's new narrator robot, but the area is wonderfully spooky and full of fantastically fearsome wicker constructions. . Stormsong Valley, meanwhile, adds a touch of Lovecraft to the shack on the side of the Alliance, and had my favorite main search content.
The zones of the Horde are possibly even more attractive, and certainly more distinctive. The Zandalari Empire criticizes Mayan and Inca architecture, which is not commonly found in modern video games. I often found myself stopping to look at the incredible views of Zandalar. I do not think a 14-year-old game can impress modern eyes, but the Blizzard artists have done it.
Entering character
Although the disappointing story is a drag, that does not mean that The battle for Azeroth is futile. On the contrary, it is wonderful to play, and everything is a matter of class.
"Class", of course, is the familiar fantasy trope that surrounds the different abilities of the characters, and there is not much unique about Blizzard's approach at a glance. While the Demon Hunter, added in the previous expansion of the Legion is a little out of the ordinary, most classes are exactly what you expect. Warriors, magicians and druids, oh!
However, there is more in a class than its subject. The way he plays is equally important, and that's where you'll find Battle for the success of Azeroth . More than a decade of iteration has helped Blizzard polish each class with almost perfect brightness. Most have enough skills to keep you interested, but not so many that you feel overwhelmed, and each character has at least one weird trick. Druids change of form. Warriors jump through the air like superheroes. Witches invoke demons.
Your character feels like your character more than ever
The game currently has twelve classes, which is a fair number, but which sells its short variety. Each class has two to four subclasses, and they are so diverse that they are basically a separate class. That brings the options to an incredible thirty-six roads. Blizzard uses this wide selection not only to increase the number, but also to make sure that you can find a style of game that you love.
Specializations vary in complexity, speed, mobility, range, and more. Do you want to crush the buttons? Choose a Fury Warrior. Do you want a rotation of complex skills that requires constant attention in multiple objectives and a careful calendar of key skills? Go for the feral druid.
The battle for Azeroth takes a step back in Legion. The new customizable team, Aztec Armor, offers fewer options than Artifact Weapons in Legion . The individual improvements in Armor of Azeri usually have more impact, but they are still too small to make an easily discernible difference. One of my Druid's armor pieces offered an upgrade that rewarded me with extra damage by using different types of spells, for example. However, the added damage did not seem noticeable, and I did not see any new spell effect. I had trouble remembering the existing update.
Still, many specializations of the game offer a variety of characters that World of Warcraft lacked in previous years. Your character feels like your character more than ever, and that attachment keeps you wanting to finish just one more mission before closing session.
Forget the Island Expeditions. The dungeons are where they are.
Battle for Azeroth adds two new game modes, Island Expeditions and Warfronts, although only the first is available to play at the launch. The expeditions are missions of three players that throw players on a randomly generated island in order to collect as many Azerbaijanis as possible. You are not alone, however; the other faction is also trying to collect Azeri.
It's a good idea, but the players already seem to get bored with it. Variety, or lack thereof, is part of the problem. The three-on-three format is balanced and makes the races difficult until the end. It also means that you are always there for the same reason. The island may look different, and the enemies may look a little different, but you are always there for the same reason.
You are not going to choose Expeditions for emotion, and you will not appear for the rewards, either.
You will not choose Expeditions for emotion, and you will not appear for the rewards either. You win a lot of Azerbaijani, but that's all aside from some random rewards, like mounts. Azerbaijani is a boring reward, and players who are not trying to progress quickly on the content of mythical difficulty do not need to be effective. The result? Most players ignore Expeditions.
The dungeons remain the true content of the final game for most players (apart from the attack, of course), as has been true since the original game's release. The 10 new dungeons in the expansion make the Blizzard experience obvious. They are ingenious experiences that offer the variety that expeditions lack. Some dungeons are traditional and linear experiences. Others are more open. And some earth in the middle. My personal favorite is probably Waycrest Manor, a non-linear dungeon that includes a wonderful fight against the haunted owners of the mansion, complete with organ music.
Fun is backed by rewards. The dungeons are not too stingy with the equipment, so you usually get some kind of improvement. The rapid pace of updates means that you will quickly graduate from the heroic to the normal, and from the heroic to the mythical, before you get bored playing at a level that is no longer a challenge. From there you can jump to the Mythic + dungeons which, due to the difficulty of climbing with random affixes, can perform tasks even in hardcore players.
This is not the game you think it is
However, you do not need to be hard to enjoy Battle for Azeroth . Blizzard successfully transformed World of Warcraft into a game that rewards players at all levels of skill and commitment. You can work towards a goal even if you have less than half an hour to play, and you never have to "git gud" if you prefer not to bother.
The cinematic introduction and searches lead to a lot of cliché and not much action.
Allied races are an intelligent example. You can not play until you get an exalted reputation with the race faction in the game, which requires some weeks of casual play. Once unlocked, you can win a unique and great patrimonial armor set, but only if you level up that character to the maximum without using a pay level boost. For the first time, there are reasons to unlock and level up new characters. If you just want to start alternative characters and never touch a raid or even a dungeon of the final game, that's great! The game backs you up and rewards you anyway.
Or maybe you want a challenge at the end of the game, but you do not have a few hours to set aside for a raid. No problem. Mythic + dungeons, timed runs must finish in half an hour or less, have returned. There is also the new Warfronts mode which, in beta version, usually took 30 or 40 minutes, although it will not be available until a few weeks after the release of Battle for Azeroth . The player vs. player battlefields also come back and rarely require more than 20 minutes to complete.
There are still incursions, of course, and they are ridiculously difficult if you want them to be. The mythical band chiefs will not be killed for the first time until after several weeks, and hundreds of attempts, by the best guilds in the world. That, however, is a fraction of what you can do after hitting Battle for the Azeroth level limit . There is always some way to move forward, no matter how much (or little) time you can devote to the game.
World of Warcraft is good. The battle for Azeroth seems … OK
The battle for Azeroth has had a weak start. The new areas are beautiful, no doubt, but the cinematic introduction and searches lead to a lot of cliché and not much action. Island Expeditions has failed and the new system of changes, Azeri Armor, is simultaneously confusing and boring.
However, the core of World of Warcraft is better than ever. Anyone who has not played the expansion of the Legion should try the game: they do not even have to buy the new expansion, since all the expansions prior to Battle for Azeroth are now unlocked with a monthly subscription You can reacquaint yourself for only $ 15.
I just hope we see more Jaina.