I have been curious about Destiny since its inception. This is not, if I’m being honest, because anything about it seems particularly appealing, but mainly due to its pedigree. I still have tremendous love for the Myth franchise, and even after so much time, it makes my ears perk up whenever Bungie is mentioned.

I also freely grant this is not a particularly rational way to be. Destiny is about as far away from Myth as any game could possibly be, and even if it wasn’t, it’s been twenty years. Odds are most if not all of the people who made Myth aren’t even with the company anymore.

But still, I chase the nostalgia, and that has kept Destiny on my radar. I couldn’t play the first game because it was console exclusive, but I was very eager to jump into the open beta on PC.

It proved to be a deeply disappointing experience. Not because of anything wrong with the game, but because the beta offered such a small sliver of it as to be entirely pointless.

Most of the beta experience consists of what I want to call a tutorial but can’t because it doesn’t actually teach the player anything.

At all.

There is no explanation of anything. Not even some pop-ups to teach you the keybindings. Now, Destiny 2 is not by any stretch of the imagination a complex game, and I was able to get through fine just by reading the keybindings in the options menu and engaging in some basic experimentation. But it seems sloppy to just throw people in and expect them to swim.

Nor are there are any clues given as to the world or the story. There’s no lore, no codex, and no effort whatsoever to catch-up people like me, who didn’t play the first game. My understanding of the Destiny universe right now is that there are Sith space Orcs and they shot at me so I shot them back.

None of this is hyperbole.

After that, the only things you can do in the beta are PvP matches (I didn’t bother with those) and a short three-person dungeon. I wasn’t able to fully explore or gain a good impression of this because even in beta the “go-go-go” MMO culture is in full effect, and my teammates treated the whole thing as a sprint to the finish.

Even character creation is remarkably stripped down. I was able to choose a class (warlock) and nothing else, not even gender. I’d like to believe this is a beta limitation, but I thought the same thing about The Division’s character customization, and we all know how that turned out.

Mind you, I suppose it wouldn’t matter anyway. It’s a first person game, and our characters never seem to take off their helmets, so I don’t suppose visual character customization would actually serve any purpose.

I want to be clear that I am not hating on the game here. I haven’t seen enough of it to form any meaningful impression, critical or otherwise.

There are only a few clear opinions I was able to form from this brief experience:

-The class abilities are fun, but their cooldowns feel excessively long. I was hoping for an RPG/shooter hybrid like Mass Effect, but it hews much closer to a traditional FPS.

-The game often seemed to be trying to be funny. Never once did I so much as a crack a smile.

-I adore the pistol they gave me in my starting gear. Accurate, large clip, and hits like a truck. If that gun were a woman, I would make it my wife.

And that’s pretty much it. I honestly think I could have learned more by reading the game’s Wikipedia page.

This was a great opportunity for Bungie to convert me from a fence-sitter to a customer, but they blew it.

Seven down, five to go.

The latest class story under my belt in World of Warcraft is priest, meaning I have now finished the campaigns for all three cloth classes, as well as all four of my Blood Elf characters (I think we should all be impressed that only 1/3 of my characters are Blood Elves).

As I suspected, the priest story and the paladin story are pretty much the same thing, with exactly the same ending. There’s even a few cases where NPCs called my priest “highlord,” which is the paladin title.

I think this was a disservice to both classes. The paladins got robbed of a proper ending to their own story, and the priests miss out on some important aspects of the plot, like where Lothraxion comes from and how Delas became a paladin.

And if you play both, it’s just repetitive.

As with the paladin story, there’s also some things that are glossed over that really shouldn’t be. Oh, hey, here’s zombie Alonsus Faol and Arthas Menethil’s sister the rightful queen of Lordaeron, but let’s not for a moment acknowledge what a massive deal that is or explain in any way where they’ve been all this time.

The one thing I really did like about the story was the bit about Natalie Seline, as it is (I think) the first actual canonical lore we’ve gotten around the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow and shadow priests in general. It was all too brief, though.

My main motivation for playing a priest, beyond my general desire to finish as many class stories as possible, was because shadow has access to one of the most exciting artifact weapons: Xal’atath, Blade of the Black Empire.

Xal’atath is somewhat unique in that it is arguably the only artifact that is both a completely new addition in Legion, and a big deal in the greater lore: an ancient sacrificial dagger dating back to the Black Empire itself, the nightmarish civilization of the Old Gods that dominated Azeroth before the coming of the Titans.

Beyond that, Xal’atath is not simply a weapon. She is a sentient being with a malevolent will all her own. She will even whisper to you as you play, providing tantalizing insights to all that is happening… if you’re willing to take her at her word.

This, however, did prove something of a disappointment simply because Xal’atath’s dialogue is far less frequent than I had expected. It reminds me waiting on party banter in Dragon Age: Inquisition. It’s almost always interesting when it comes up, but each bit of dialogue can be few and far between.

I do love her voice acting, though. The actress did a great job. Far from the gravel-voiced snarls of most Warcraft villains, Xal’atath’s voice is calm, soothing, even seemingly reasonable.

It’s so easy to forget just what she is and what she represents. It’s easy to understand how so many people have fallen under sway down through the countless millennia.

It does make me a bit sad for the limitations of an MMO. I’d love to see Xal’atath’s story continue. I’d love to see her ultimately betray the player, and perhaps become a dungeon or raid boss. It would be interesting to see just what her true form really is.

But all of that is extremely unlikely to ever happen, because she’s an item that the player controls and relies on. Even when artifacts are no longer relevant (still a terrible idea, by the way), lots of people will still be transmoging their weapons into her, I’m sure, and people who don’t play priests likely won’t know who she is. So in likelihood her story ends here.

Playing a priest was also somewhat interesting from a gameplay perspective. If you’ve read Superior Realities for a long time, you may remember priest was the very first class I ever played in World of Warcraft, though I quickly lost interest in it. I always found it tedious at low levels, but the concept of a class blending the powers of Light and Shadow has continued to appeal strongly in theory, and I often thought I might like it better at high levels.

Now, I had the opportunity to put the theory to the test, having skipped straight to level 100 with my free boost from Legion. I’m not sure if it’s because of being high level or the class changes that came with Legion, but I did definitely enjoy being a priest much more than I ever have before, though it’s still not going to go down as my favourite class.

At least in the current version of things, priest is a rather strange class. Holy is the vanilla healer spec of all vanilla healer specs, but discipline and shadow both feel rather unusual.

I still feel that WoW’s UI isn’t a good fit for the kind of damage-healer hybrid discipline is, but despite that, I found it growing on me. It’s certainly a refreshing change of pace, and closer to the kind of balanced support playstyle I feel MMO healers should be.

Shadow I maintain mixed feelings on. I like the general idea of building to voidform and then trying to maintain it as long as possible, but it’s tuned in such a hectic and unforgiving way that the playstyle feels very rushed. It’s exhausting after a while. I would like to see insanity built and spent at about half its current rate, making voidform a rarer but more satisfying experience.

Finally, this was a very visually appealing class. The big caster animation update happened about halfway through my playthrough of the class campaign, and I’ve been loving the new effects and animations for everything.

Beyond that, priests have always been one of the luckiest classes when it comes to things like tier sets, so I’ve been having a grand time coming up with all sorts of pretty outfits for her, as you can see from the screenshots (click them to view full size).

My backstory for the character is that she made a secret and desperate pact with the Void  when the Light abandoned her people, a pact she now deeply regrets, so I’m trying to make all of her outfits hide her face in some way. She must always conceal the shame in her expression, and the madness in her eyes.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that the video games we refer to as role-playing games, or RPGs, are spectacularly mislabeled?

Let’s look at what that term actually means. “Role-playing” refers to assuming an identity or personality other than your own. To pretend to be someone else, usually to act out a scenario or tell a story.

While most RPGs incorporate at least some element of this, it’s very rarely the focus. It isn’t what defines the genre. In video game terms, RPG elements are considered to be things like character levels, stat sheets, experience points, and unlockable abilities. All of these things have little or nothing to do with role-playing.

I understand that the ingrained terminology of the genre is not going to change just because a chubby blogger in Toronto says so, but I would like to outline why I believe that most if not all video games we call RPGs are mislabeled, and how this goes a long way to explaining my love-hate relationship with the genre.

Stop, drop, and role:

I know quoting Wikipedia is in the same realm of tackiness as bringing 7 Up as a wedding gift, but while looking for definitions of role-playing, I found this one pretty apt: “A role-playing game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories.” [Source]

I would argue that video games eliminate the need for other players in the creation of your role-play story, as scripted NPCs can fulfill the same need. That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t role-play with other people, of course; it just means they aren’t a necessity.

Either way, role-play is about assuming a role and telling a story.

Now what does that have to do with level grinds and character stats? Nothing whatsoever.

In the early days of tabletop role-playing, things like character sheets and stat rolls and such were necessary to give the experience some degree of order and consistent logic. Video games, on the other hand, have the ability to keep all that under the hood and provide the player a seamless, immersive experience.

But because the genre’s origins were rooted in numbers and stats, gamers and developers have come to conflate the two. The character sheets and dice rolls continued into the digital space, and now they’ve taken over the genre entirely to the point where they’ve shoved out the actual role-playing.

Consider MMOs. Traditionally developers have had to designate special servers (usually a minority of the total server pool) for role-playing, and increasingly they’re not even bothering to do that.

Those who do role-play in MMOs are often viewed by other players as strange or even deviant, and openly mocked. They are a minority, and like all minorities in gaming, held in very low regard.

Does this not seem incredibly bizarre to anyone else? If we’re to believe the name of the genre, role-players are the only ones who are actually playing the games correctly, and I say that as someone who is at best only on the barest periphery of role-play.

I think this proves the games we call RPGs aren’t about role-playing at all. Most of them incorporate RPG elements, but that doesn’t make them true RPGs.

To give you an idea, I think Life Is Strange is much more of an RPG than World of Warcraft. It’s all about playing a character and making choices as that character to shape the story. I’m not sure it’s a perfect example of what an RPG could or should be, but it’s certainly much closer than most of the games we call RPGs.

So what should we call them?

I name your true name:

I would argue that the genre we have come to call RPGs should instead be known as progression games.

The core concept that unifies the genre is that of progression, of growing more powerful and improving your character’s performance. You level up, unlock new abilities, get better gear, and so forth. This is true regardless of whether you’re playing Mass Effect, Pillars of Eternity, Diablo, Aion, Persona, or whatever other example you want to give.

Progression is the mechanic that purists of the genre cling to. I’ve often heard complaints that level-scaling such as was introduced to the Elder Scrolls Online with One Tamriel is bad because it makes games less of an RPG. That’s an absolutely ridiculous argument; level-scaling makes a game more of an RPG by eliminating ridiculous scenarios like slaying a dragon with a single punch.

But level-scaling does make it less of a progression game. We have conflated RPGs and progression mechanics to the point where people are unable to separate them, but in truth it’s little more than an accident of history that the two are related at all.

Pretty much the only area where the two concepts meet is when constructing a character build. Your choices of which stats to stack and which abilities to unlock help express the identity of your character, and that is an element of role-playing as well as a means of progression.

For example, in World of Warcraft, my warlock actually hates demons. As a result, I choose the talent Grimoire of Sacrifice whenever possible, allowing her to sacrifice her demon minion to increase her own power. This enhances the fantasy of the character. To her, demons are simply a resource to fuel her own quest for vengeance, and Grimoire of Sacrifice lets me express this concept through the gameplay.

But even then performance concerns in progression games can often cause you to make compromises in your character concept in order to ensure your character is strong enough to overcome the challenges before you. This is especially a problem in MMOs, where there’s an element of social pressure to conform.

Stalled by progression:

Understanding the difference between role-playing and progression games goes a long way to explaining the love/hate relationship that I have with the genre we tend to call RPGs. You see, I’m a big fan of role-playing games, but much less fond of progression games.

Certainly progression provides a very strong psychological hook, which is why nearly every game of every genre now has at least some small element of it. We are as a species keyed to appreciate reward structures like this.

But that doesn’t necessarily make it interesting gameplay, and the more time you spend with it, the more transparent it becomes. After so many years of playing progression games — especially MMOs, where the treadmill is at its most naked and cynical — I have almost entirely stopped caring. I’ve gotten so much phat lewt and heard so many level dings that it’s stopped meaning anything to me at all.

I still like making builds, and earning new abilities is the one part of progression that still consistently excites me, hence my two Panoptic Cores in TSW (RIP). But for the most part I’m reaching the point where I just want to establish a good build as quickly as possible and then focus on actually playing the game.

Progression inhibits role-play at least as much as it enhances it. It’s a distraction at best, a roadblock at worst. Hence my eternal frustration with a genre I otherwise love. What I want is to inhabit a character, to immerse myself in a world. Most of what we call RPGs offer this, but not always to the extent I crave. Too much focus is put on the numbers, not enough on the texture and character of the world and its story.

I think this is what keeps me coming back to Bioware, despite their inconsistencies. They’re progression games, but they haven’t forgotten their RPG roots. They’re still, at their heart, about people, places, and stories.

And that’s what attracts me: Exploring new lands, getting to know characters, and living out stories. Those are the experiences I crave. That’s what role-playing games are truly about.

I’ve been pretty diligent about blogging on the various class stories in World of Warcraft as I’ve completed them, but along the way I’ve neglected to talk about the rest of my adventures in Azeroth. It’s time to rectify that, so without further ado, I present you my thoughts on the Tomb of Sargeras, Argus, and more.

If you’re not up to date on the 7.2 and 7.3 content that’s currently been released, here be spoilers.

Tomb raiding:

When you think about it, it’s pretty strange it’s taken so long for the Tomb of Sargeras to appear in WoW, isn’t it? It’s been an important location in Warcraft lore since the 90s.

Anyway, it’s a good raid. I like it. It’s the first raid I’ve done in a long time that feels truly epic and important, and it’s got a lot of fun boss fights.

I was a mixed on Kil’jaeden being a mid-tier boss. He’s the sort of character who’s usually reserved for an end of expansion encounter, and even then, I’ve spent a long time thinking we players should never have the chance to defeat him (Sunwell doesn’t count since he hadn’t even fully entered Azeroth).

But his fight does feel suitably epic and intense, and I realized that I was still thinking of the old Kil’jaeden, the one from before the great Draenei retcon that blew up lore as we knew it.

He used to be this immortal avatar of evil, the personification of darkness itself. But after the retcon, he’s now just another warlock. An ancient and unusually powerful warlock, yes, but still, just a warlock. He’s not the legendary figure he once was.

So I guess it’s okay for him to be ganked by a gaggle of random mortals halfway through an expansion.

His death cinematic and the reveal of Argus was great, too, though I wish they hadn’t gone through with sticking Argus in the sky for everyone even if they haven’t done the fight yet. Rather spoiled the reveal.

Mind you, it’s impossible to ever avoid spoilers where WoW is concerned. No one in the community — including the devs themselves — has any respect for that sort of thing.

The hand of fate:

Due in large part to my enmity for the Draenei, the seemingly inevitable journey to Argus is something I’ve long-dreaded. I remain relieved that it’s merely a patch and not a full expansion.

As I’ve played through it, I’ve gone back and forth on my feelings on it.

The defeat of the Burning Legion is not something I ever expected or wanted to see, but it does seem increasingly likely that’s where we’re headed. The whole appeal of the Legion was that they were nigh-unstoppable. You could fend them off — you could save your world — but you could never hope to end their threat entirely.

But now we’re invading their home turf, and it looks like the Legion will soon be a thing of the past.

I was also initially bothered by how many non-Legion Eredar — Broken and Army of the Light alike — have apparently survived and continued fighting the Legion all this time.

I can think of no better symbol of how utterly the Legion has been defanged. They were introduced as the end of all life, and now it turns out they couldn’t even stamp out all resistance on the world that is their base of operations. They’re not very good at this, are they?

But then I realized that the Legion has been neutered for a long time now. I keep wanting them to be as terrifying as they were in Warcraft III, but the fact is that ship has sailed.

When I consider the damage that’s been done to the Legion’s lore over the years, Argus is about making the best of a bad situation. Seen through that lens, it’s doing a very good job, and if you let go of the Legion as the Ultimate Threat and view it simply as a threat, it’s actually a great ride.

Argus is a scary place. The mobs are pretty tough by WoW’s meager standards, there are elites and mini-bosses everywhere, the environments are hellish, and overall you really do get the impression that this entire planet wants to kill you. It’s one of those places where you feel like a complete badass just for setting foot there, and I haven’t gotten that feeling this strongly since Icecrown.

I’ve heard some people say that Argus is a pain to navigate, and that’s probably true for someone who can’t double jump and glide, but I brought my demon hunter there, and for her, Argus is a playground. I can get almost anywhere by finding a cliff and gliding. It’s wonderful.

Right now, the place is teeming with players, so there’s a great “D-Day” feel to the place, too. This is definitely one of those moments where I’m glad to play MMOs. Single-player games just don’t capture quite the same feeling, no matter how many NPCs you cram in.

I’ve enjoyed the story, as well. Even the Draenei stuff, mostly.

It probably doesn’t hurt that Argus paints the Draenei in an incredibly bad light. Now that we know many of their people stayed behind to fight, the Draenei are no longer these saintly embodiments of all goodness and virtue. Suddenly we realize they’re the deserters who left their friends and family to die. Dare I say, do the Draenei have nuance now?

I was a bit suspicious around the reintroduction of Turalyon and Alleria, given how forced Khadgar’s sudden return to the spotlight has felt, but whacky timeline issues aside, I’m finding their stories very intriguing (especially Alleria’s, not surprisingly).

The most interesting thing is that I get the distinct impression their story doesn’t end with Legion’s. In fact, it seems like it’s just getting started…

I just hope Alleria doesn’t wind up too anti-Horde. I mean, historically, she’s been extremely anti-Horde, so it would make sense, but I’d like at least one Windrunner sister to find a place among the Blood Elves. It’s hard for me to get over Vereesa betraying her own people, and whatever Sylvanas may have been in life, it’s clear she no longer feels any loyalty to Quel’thalas.

I want a Windrunner I can cheer for. I don’t want to have to choose between how much I like Alleria and how much I like the Blood Elves.

Overall, I’m feeling pretty happy with Argus, and in fact I’m probably more content with WoW now than I have been in a very long time.

Odds and ends:

Few other random things to note.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m very underwhelmed by the soundtrack in the two most recent WoW expansions. This is a shame because the music used to be a huge part of the game’s appeal for me.

Somewhere along the line it occurred to me to wonder if there was an add-on that could customize the in-game soundtrack. Turns out there are several. I picked Epic Music Player. You can use it to import your own music, but I’ve been content to just play with the existing WoW soundtrack, which is all pre-loaded into the add-on.

I set up customized play-lists for each Legion zone, drawing on my favourite tracks from Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria, plus some of the better Legion songs. These playlists activate automatically as soon as I enter the corresponding zone.

It’s done wonders for my enjoyment of the expansion, honestly. It’s amazing what a difference a good soundtrack could make.

In other news, I’ve gotten some interesting cosmetics recently.

I’m not much of a mount collector, and while the grind to unlock them is relatively tame, I haven’t the patience to get every single class mount. But as you can see, I did decide to grab the paladin class mount on the grounds that it’s gorgeous (I’ve already had the raven mount for rogues for a while, and I love it).

I especially like the red and grey tint for the paladin mount, as it matches my transmog very well. It leaves silver hoofprints when it runs. It’s lovely.

Also on the subject of mounts, I finally pulled the trigger and got myself the Grand Expedition Yak from Pandaria. It costs almost as much as a full WoW Token, but being able to access a vendor or change my outfit anywhere in the game is a wonderful convenience.

And the Grummles amuse me. It seems very surreal running through the horrors of Argus with the little guys. “WHERE IS YOUR LUCKYDO NOW?”

Finally, as a PSA, it seems the drop rates for many hidden artifact appearances were greatly increased in 7.3. Did someone say…

…Thunderfury, Hallowed Blade of the Windlord?

Got a few more articles over at MMO Bro for you to peruse.

First, I attempt to answer the question, “Are MMOs Too Easy?” Which turns out to be a far more daunting task than you might imagine.

Next, I ponder if it may be time for players and commentators to give Bartle’s player types a rest. Truthfully I’ve always found it strange that people put so much weight on such a basic system.

BlizzCon, the Christmas in November for Blizzard fans, is now just a few weeks away, and as always I’m here to make my predictions and list my hopes for what we’ll see there.

This year, I think we all know what the big story will be.

Something something Kul Tiras:

It is at this point about 99.9% certain that the next WoW expansion will be announced at BlizzCon 2017. We know Antorus is Legion’s last raid tier, so the time is right. The question then is not whether an expansion will be announced, but what it will be.

I’ve talked before about the datamined armour set pointing to Kul Tiras. Since then, we’ve also learned that the key art for Warcraft at BlizzCon is a lavish portrait of Jaina Proudmoore, the most famous Tirasian in the Warcraft universe, which I think all but confirms Kul Tiras as the setting of 8.0.

But what will we be doing in Kul Tiras?  As I said in the linked post, Azshara and the Naga are the first thing that comes to mind, but there have been so many false alarms on that front over the years that I’m trying not to get my hopes up.

Kul Tiras has historically been very anti-Horde, and Jaina has pretty much turned into her father at this point, so this could also be another expansion focusing on the faction conflict. I hope not, because that angle is beyond played out at this point, but it’s definitely something I could see Blizzard doing. Maybe this will be Mists of Pandaria 2 with Jaina playing the role of Garrosh.

Sadly, I don’t think that’s as far-fetched as it sounds.

One thing I did find interesting is that one of the panels on the BlizzCon schedule is devoted to the voice actresses who play Warcraft’s female characters. Maybe it’s nothing, but to me that seems a bit of a random thing to do, considering how male-dominated WoW has tended to be.

However, if this is the first expansion with a female villain — Azshara — then it would make a lot more sense.

Then again, it could also make sense for a faction war expansion focused on Jaina and Sylvanas. Hmm…

There’s also a solid chance a Kul Tiras expansion could be something totally unexpected that none of us could have seen coming. Warlords of Draenor proved anything is possible, for better or for worse. Mostly for worse, if I’m being honest.

Features:

So now that we’ve read the tea leaves regarding the story and setting, what about the features?

As always, I want to see a new class and/or new specs. New ways to play are always exciting.

There’s a fair bit of speculation going around that Alleria’s story on Argus is setting up a new void-themed archer class. I would love to see that proven true, because that’s pretty much my dream class.

But realistically I don’t think we’re going to see any new classes or specs so soon after the addition of demon hunters and Legion’s big class shake-ups. I think Blizzard will prefer to play it safe on that front for now — though I do think it’s very likely we’ll see new race/class combos opened up.

However, it has now been more than five years since a new playable race was added to World of Warcraft, and I think odds are very good that drought is about to break.

I’ve wanted Vrykul to be playable for years, and after Legion, I feel like that possibility is closer than ever. Legion did a lot to expand their culture and flesh them out as a people, and given that we’ve now seen equivalents of most playable classes among them (the Valkyra are basically paladins, for instance), part of me suspects Blizzard is prepping them for playable status.

If Vrykul are added, I think they would probably be another neutral race. Their culture fits in well with the Horde, but their connection to humanity gives them an in with the Alliance. It’s too hard to judge which faction suits them more, so why bother? Giant Vikings for all, I say.

If we don’t get Vrykul, there are still a few other possibilities for new races. I’m surprised Ogres aren’t already a playable race for Horde, and on the Alliance front, Furbolgs could be an option. They’ve long been allies of the Night Elves, so it would make sense.

There’s a lot of speculation around Nightborne being made playable, too. I think they’d be too close to our existing Elven races to really justify the development — they look very close to Night Elves and act very close to Blood Elves — but I can’t rule it out.

If any races do get added, look for them to be the first hero race(s). That is, expect them to start at a high level, similar to demon hunters or death knights. I think Blizzard has just given up on leveling at this point, and even I have to admit 110 levels (presumably soon to be 120) is a daunting prospect for anyone.

There’s also been talk of new character customization options being added for all existing races, and I think there’s a decent chance of that. The new Eredar looks on Argus could be a test of this. Personally, I’d love to be able to give my rogue blue hair.

Of course, we’re bound to get the usual new zones, dungeons, and raids. Beyond that and a possible new race, I don’t expect a lot of big news. I think Blizzard is done with adding permanent new systems or features at this point.

I don’t think class halls will continue to be relevant past Legion, but expect a mission table of some sort — with new followers to restart the grind.

Similarly, I don’t think class campaigns will continue. Even Blizzard doesn’t have the resources to maintain twelve distinct stories indefinitely. Well, they probably do, but it would cut into their ability to add more exclusive gear, mounts, and boss phases for the 0.1% of people who do mythic raids, and obviously we can’t have that.

However, class campaigns have been popular enough that we might see something similar. One possibility that I see is that instead of each class having its own story, there are a couple of different campaigns shared between several classes. For example, shamans, druids, and hunters could share a campaign, since they’re all nature-themed classes.

We already know artifacts are going the way of the dodo — though I still can’t imagine why — but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some max level progression system that’s nearly identical to the artifact power grind, just without the artifact.

I expect 8.0 zones will use Legion’s level-scaling system, but I don’t think the Broken Isles will scale past 110, and I don’t see the tech being applied to legacy content. It’s just too big a change, and Blizzard tends to be relatively conservative. Which is a shame because I’d love to see a “One Azeroth” update with global level-scaling. So much potential that could open up.

The rest of the catalogue:

Beyond the WoW expansion, I don’t see a lot of big news coming out of BlizzCon 2017. We already know Diablo won’t have any news, and I imagine it will be steady as she goes for the other games.

Hearthstone will get a new expansion. Overwatch will get a new map and/or character. Heroes of the Storm will announce some new heroes.

I’d love to see some more story content for StarCraft II, but there’s no reason to believe that will happen. Most likely we’ll just see a new War Chest and co-op commander. We already know that the next commander is Terran, and it will probably be Matt Horner. He was one of three unreleased commanders with achievement headings in Legacy of the Void’s beta, and the other two — Stukov and Karax — are now in-game. I’m hoping he’s focused on air units, especially Battlecruisers.

We know Blizzard is working on at least one new game, which is believed to be an MMORTS for mobile platforms. Reeeaally not sure how to feel about that, but I don’t have to decide now, as I very much doubt it or any other new title will be ready for reveal at this BlizzCon.

Similarly, I suspect Blizzard is probably working on more remasters of old games, but they probably won’t announce anything so soon after the release of the StarCraft remaster.

Given that Blizzard’s idea of a remaster seems to be only a minor tweak to graphics and nothing else, the idea of revamps of their older titles doesn’t excite me much anymore. The one I would like to see is Warcraft III, as it’s the only one whose gameplay can still hold up in 2017. It doesn’t need more than a graphical spit-shine.

In summary, I predict Kul Tiras will be the headline, probably with a new race(s), which I hope will be Vrykul, as well as new race/class combos. There will be only minor updates to the other games, of which Matt Horner will be the only one that really matters to me.

What do you expect or hope to see at BlizzCon 2017?

I have a strange relationship with the death knight class in World of Warcraft. I’ve always said I love everything about death knights except actually playing them. The playstyle has just never quite clicked for me, and as a result my death knight has long been one of my most neglected alts.

And yet the fact remains I really love the idea of the class. For sheer style points, they’ve always been one of the best classes in WoW, with cool spell effects and consistently amazing tier sets. And most importantly, they have an incredible story.

Death knights were WoW’s first (and for a long time its only) hero class, and thus the first class with its own unique starting experience.

That starting experience was a quantum leap forward for WoW’s story-telling. I can still remember when I made my first death knight and was completely blown away. After months of my WoW experience being collecting bear asses, the epic experience I knew and loved from the Warcraft franchise was back. I was rubbing shoulders with legendary lore figures, getting to love a new cast of characters, and wading into massive battles with the fate of Azeroth on the line.

I’ve gone back and made other death knights on other servers several different times just because I loved that starting experience so much.

And so maybe it’s not surprising the death knight class campaign in Legion has been one of my favourites. In fact, with eight classes down now, there’s pretty good odds it will go down as my single favourite campaign.

As with all the best class campaigns, the death knight story draws heavily on what has come before. The original starting experience did a very good job of forging a sense of camaraderie between the player and the NPCs, and the Legion campaign very wisely brings pretty much all of them back and puts them at the centre of the story. It felt great to once again be fighting alongside Thassarian, Koltira, and Darion. It was as if no time had passed.

I was especially reminded of how much I love Darion Mograine as a character. Part of it is just his awesome voice, but I love his unique combination of breathtaking bitterness and cynicism tempered with lingering traces of optimism and nobility.

“All is not lost… not yet.”

The Ebon Blade has also always done a very good job of selling the anti-hero angle, and that’s one area where I can’t help but compare with the demon hunter campaign. As much as I hate to use the buzzword, the Illidari mostly come across as a bunch of angry edgelords.

The death knights have a more nuanced approach. They’re monsters, and they know they’re monsters, and they’ve decided to turn their hideous nature against even worse monsters so as to preserve that which is still good in the world. They do heinous things, and they know that no one will ever forgive them for what they’ve done, least of all themselves.

The camaraderie that exists between the Knights of the Ebon Blade, as well as their tremendous self-awareness, adds a very sympathetic angle to what would otherwise be a tremendously unlikable bunch of people.

There’s even more to praise about the death knight campaign, but the rest starts to veer into spoiler territory. Suffice it to say we got to revisit some long-neglected locations, storylines, and characters, and it’s definitely enriched Warcraft lore as a whole.

Really my only big complaint about this story is that it left me wanting more. A lot more. I know the odds of this happening are exactly zero, but I would love to see a single-player game that’s all about the Ebon Blade and their story. They’re such a fascinating bunch.

Gameplay-wise, I also had more fun with my DK than I have in the past. Legion’s changes to the rune system seem to have sped up and smoothed out the rotation a bit. Blood still feels off to me in a way I can’t quite define, but I’ve had a pretty good time playing frost and unholy.

Legion unholy is pretty much the only pet spec in WoW I’ve truly enjoyed (well, I was a big demonology fan for a long time, but I liked it despite the pets). As unholy, your pets don’t feel like they’re detracting from your character — they’re a bonus rather than a crutch — and the sheer number of them you can summon is a real power-trip.

Apocalypse is also one of the very few artifact abilities that is genuinely impressive. One of my few complaints about artifacts is that the abilities granted by these supposedly awesome weapons tend to feel surprisingly weak, but Apocalypse is an exception, looking and feeling awesome to use.

Also, if you’re not shouting “APOCALYYYYPSE!!” in your best Lich King voice whenever you use it, you’re playing the class wrong.

Meanwhile, frost spec does a very good job of capturing the “unrelenting killing machine” fantasy of the death knight class. It is a bit on the simple side, but you can add complexity through talents, and it’s fun and relaxing to play.

If you haven’t played a death knight in Legion, you might want to consider it.

Another class campaign in the history books: shaman. This makes for 75% of Legion’s class stories finished, as well as at least one class of every armour type at max level (a first in my WoW career).

Storm, earth, and fire…

The shaman story, to be honest, just isn’t that good. The fundamental concept is flawed.

Your mission is to unite the four Elemental Lords against the Legion. That’s something that seems reasonable at face value — shamans deal with the elements, after all — but is revealed to be powerfully stupid once you examine it.

It does draw some attention to one of the most confusing aspects of Warcraft lore (so confusing even I’m not exactly clear on it): What, if any, is the distinction between the elemental spirits and the elementals?

I have long operated under the assumption they are, in fact, separate. The elemental spirits are shown to be omnipresent and usually (but not always) benevolent, whereas the elementals are mainly imprisoned in the Elemental Planes and usually (but not always) evil.

But the distinction has never been clearly drawn, and WoW often seems to treat the two groups as interchangeable, so it’s all deeply confusing.

If my assumption is correct, it doesn’t really make sense for the shaman campaign to focus on elementals rather than the spirits, but even if I’m wrong, it still doesn’t make sense, because one thing that’s absolutely certain is that the Elemental Lords are bad news.

The Elemental Lords have historically been servants of the Old Gods, and they all hate mortals. Trying to give them more power is a colossally bad idea. Not that long ago at all, our characters were fighting tooth and nail to depose the Firelord and Windlord, and the shaman campaign asks us to end the chaos in Firelands and Skywall and appoint new ones?

This will not end well.

Heck, even Therazane — usually portrayed as one of the more stable and reasonable Elemental Lords — has some dialogue in the campaign implying the only reason she’s fighting the Legion is that she wants the privilege of destroying Azeroth herself.

And now we’ve unified all of the Elemental Lords into a single, powerful fighting force. And last I checked the protections around the Elemental Planes still haven’t been fixed after Deathwing punched them open, so there’s literally nothing stopping them from invading Azeroth en masse and launching another Cataclysm.

There are a lot of class campaigns that involve doing morally questionable or potentially dangerous things, but I never thought the worst one would be not demon hunter, or death knight, or rogue, or even warlock, but shaman. Gambling with the fate of the world might make sense for the Black Harvest, but shamans are supposed to be bringers of peace and harmony who serve to keep the forces of the world in balance.

The Broken Shore leg of the campaign doesn’t do much to help matters, either. It does wrap up a long-hanging loose end from Cataclysm, which I appreciate, but it does so by once again forcing you to work with someone unambiguously evil who will clearly stab you in the back at the first opportunity. You’re forced to play as a gullible idiot.

There’s other problems, too. In terms of the cast of characters, this is a very weak campaign. Half your followers are just faceless elementals we’ve never met before.

Stranger still, Azeroth’s two most famous shaman are almost totally absent from the campaign. Thrall’s disappearance is likely due to Metzen’s real life difficulties, which can’t really be helped (no matter how illogical it is in the context of the game lore), but there’s no reason Aggra couldn’t have played a starring role. Instead, she’s barely there.

With them out of the picture, the focus is on Nobundo, and while I like Nobundo about as much as I ever like Draenei (Broken > regular Draenei), he doesn’t really have the charisma or star power to carry a story like this.

At least Mylra’s still fun.

Gameplay wise, the campaign is also lacking. At one point it even commits the most cardinal sin of MMO quest design: Sending you straight back to the exact same location you just were to kill the exact same mobs you just killed. I couldn’t believe Blizzard would sink to something like that in this day and age.

And I don’t like the class hall. It’s too cold and uninviting. When I picture a shaman hall, I think a cozy spirit lodge with elders sharing wisdom around a bonfire.

One thing I can say is that the shaman campaign does more to illustrate the full extent of the Legion invasion than the rest of the expansion, even if does so mainly by telling rather than showing. It confirms that the invasion is far worse than is reflected in-game.

Also, as lame as the rest of the campaign was, the artifact quest for the Fist of Ra-den is absolutely nerdgasmic from beginning to end.

Even so, though, this is still probably my least favourite campaign so far.

…heed my call!

It’s not all bad, though. While I didn’t like the class’s story, the actual playing a shaman part was a lot of fun.

It’s something of a joyful reunion, really. You see, my shaman is actually one of my oldest WoW characters. He’s only a few weeks younger than my mage and my rogue, and older than most everyone else on my roster.

He was always on the backburner, though. A neglected third or fourth alt. And as time went on, I increasingly lost interest, mainly due to frustration with the “whack-a-mole with cooldowns” playstyle of enhancement.

As a result, my shaman was eventually abandoned in late Cataclysm (I think?), having never once reached the current max level.

Enhancement still doesn’t feel great to me, but with tri-spec now a reality, I gave elemental a try, and I love it. The spells are visceral and satisfying to use, and the toolkit feels very well-rounded: one DoT, a spammable filler, a powerful nuke on a short cooldown, a resource-spending instant nuke, a proc. It’s got everything you could want.

In retrospect I probably should have tried elemental a long time ago. It just seemed weird to have an Orc who doesn’t melee, but I’m having so much fun with elemental I don’t really care anymore.

I also continue to play restoration when in group content — being a healer is a crucial part of his backstory, and in my heart I consider that his “main” spec — and it remains very fun. It’s probably my favourite healing spec in Legion.

It’s actually remarkable how little resto has changed over the years. Oh, sure, there are some adjustments that have been made, the loss of Earth Shield being the most notable, but fundamentally it feels about the same as it did back when I first played it back in Wrath. Something comforting about that.

As with elemental, I enjoy how well-rounded restoration feels. It has a little bit of everything and a tool for every situation. Its strength lies in its versatility.

And beyond the raw mechanics, it feels good to finally have my shaman at max level, doing raids and heroics. It feels like the fulfillment of a promise, somehow. I’ve always loved the backstory I came up with for him, and I never stopped regretting abandoning him. Maybe he’ll never be my new main, but I’m glad he got to have his moment in the sun.

Lok’tar.