Crown of the Earth

Alliance Zone Review: Teldrassil
Night Elf Starting Experience 

Character: Prince Danothen, night elf arcane mage.
Level Span: 1-10
Theme: Enchanted treetop woodland

Aside from the cataclysm, night elven society has been going through severe upheavals in the wake of Wrath of the Lich King. The novel Stormrage told the story of Malfurion's return from the Emerald Dream, and the subsequent ousting of Fandral Staghelm from the Cenarion Enclave when he was revealed as the source of Malfurion's imprisonment in the first place (that's what all that morrowgrain was for). Meanwhile, ancient highborne magi have come out of hiding and rejoined the civilization who exiled them. In Cataclysm, it is these highborne whom you play as when you start a mage. Additionally, night elven druids have traveled to Gilneas to deal with what was essentially a problem they created - the worgen - and have given shelter to the Gilneans who were forced to flee their homeland.

The night elves have suffered a very tumultuous period following a ten thousand year status quo, and just as things started to settle down, these changes shifted things again. Unfortunately, the night elf starting experience reflects these changes in absolutely no capacity. I touched on this briefly in my earlier Cataclysm review: Shadowglen and Teldrassil have exactly the same narrative they had when the game first came out five years ago. A bunch of quests have been removed, and several have been improved with mechanics to make them less annoying or easier, but the goals are all the same. The same problems, the same villains, the same outcomes. It's like no time has passed at all. The sole new quest is the last one of the zone, but at that point it's really too little too late, and it smacks of being a very last ditch effort to make the questline seem meaningful.

I think it's ridiculous to ask players to repeat the same material over again when they had to revisit it anyway. But that principle aside, there's a ton of new lore to go over and it isn't even touched on. As a night elf mage, my character should be possessed of a history fundamentally different than any other night elf class, but the play experience is identical, aside from a sentence or two from the mage trainer that actually tells him nothing. And the reasons why the highborne have been accepted back into the fold aren't explained at all. We're made to assume that Mordent Evenshade appealed to Tyrande to allow the highborne to return, but that's based on "A Cautious Return," a quest we would've had to do on other characters, which doesn't even show that hypothetical meeting. We just witness Mordent's conversation with Sentinel Stillbough, and then after Cataclysm, there are highborne everywhere so... I guess he made a good case?

There's a whole lot of new material to work with, and Teldrassil was the perfect opportunity to exploit it. Had Teldrassil been used as a vehicle to relate it to the players or even involve them in it, it would be a much more interesting zone. And that some of those chances are actually going to good use elsewhere somehow makes it more frustrating. Why not use the return of the highborne to create, say, a splinter group of night elf radicals, perhaps loyal to Staghelm? Or as a chance to elaborate on the harpies as potential powers? Or use Malfurion's return to focus on the Nightmare in the Emerald Dream as a possible source of evil (beyond the very tangential extent that it does)? For an expansion that seems to be blowing all its remaining villains in one go I really hope at least one guy is thinking ahead. But it always seems that if it's not about humans or orcs, it doesn't really require any attention.

Teldrassil did not fill me with confidence about approaching the other beginner zones. I was looking forward to starting a new gnome and troll, and now I feel like I shouldn't get my hopes up. From everything I'm reading and everything I'm feeling, Warcraft fans spend a lot of time these days feeling stupid for being Warcraft fans. Beating the final quest of Teldrassil on my night elf mage was one of those times.

All That Rises

Horde Zone Review: Vashj'ir

Character: Layla du Lac, undead assassination rogue.
Level Span: 80-82
Theme: Sunken night elf city.

Vashj'ir was the first zone I played after installing Cataclysm and it was immediately jarring just how linear it was.  By only a few quests in I knew I had to be paying attention. The entrance quest to Vashj'ir involves getting on a mercenary ship and sailing under the command of Legionnaire Nazgrim into the Great Sea to lay claim to a piece of land raised by the cataclysm before the Alliance does. But as the ship nears the island, it is attacked and eventually wrecked by a sea monster called Ozumat and the ship's passengers are thrown overboard into waters teeming with naga. You are saved by a Broken shaman named Erunak Stonespeaker of the Earthen Ring, who bands you with Nazgrim and a handful of other survivors. What follows is a desperate battle for ground against the naga led by insidious sea witch Lady Naz'jar, as she attempts to lay siege to the Abyssal Maw, Neptulon's elemental realm of water.

Undersea zones have been talked about by fans for a while, and the developers were luckily mindful of all the potential problems such a zone would present. Early quests reward players with permanent zone-specific buffs that allow them increased speed and water breathing, and soon after, underwater mounts. While the steps taken to make the zone fun are great, the addition of a third axis can take some getting used to, and it was frequently difficult to tell how far my character was from her enemies. While this can be frustrating for any class it's particularly troublesome for a rogue, whose combat is so dependent on her position relative to her foes. It's easy, too, to not notice hostile units come up on you from either above or below, which can prove dangerous in crowded areas.

If you're sick of the naga, you're probably not going to like this zone, but if you're in the camp who liked the naga when they first appeared and don't think they've ever really gotten proper treatment then you'll like Vashj'ir, as it's all about the naga and is full of them. Peppered throughout are deep sea murlocs, gilblins - which are ocean-dwelling goblins (and are kinda stupid), and an array of underwater wildlife of surprising variety. The place looks pretty great, if a bit by the book - giant coral reefs, expansive ruins draped in seaweed and moss, as well as two huge stationary urchin-like creatures whom characters can travel inside.

The naga have gotten substantial attention at times before, none moreso than Zangarmarsh, but never with the same kind of attention to detail. It almost feels like Lady Vashj was wasted, as Lady Naz'jar has much more presence as a villain throughout, including a short (and pretty awesome) flashback questline explaining how she and her forces came to Vashj'ir and what they hope to do there. Although maybe she seems like a better character because Naz'jar seems to be doing a better job. The Horde forces fight a losing battle, and even though your character is victorious in her quests, they are small victories that only set Lady Naz'jar back, but not enough to thwart her. Eventually, in a climactic submarine battle, she is successful in breaching the Abyssal Maw, forcing a confrontation in the dungeon, the Throne of the Tides.

Legionnaire Nazgrim was a surprisingly good character considering he's pretty much just another grunt. Players may remember seeing him at Conquest Hold back in Grizzly Hills when he was just a sergeant - he gave a lot of the Voldrune quests. Though determined, he also sees the hopelessness of the situation and muses frequently in quest dialogue that he thinks this will end in failure. There is less to Erunak than Nazgrim, though Erunak plays a more important role throughout. Two other interesting characters are the undersea demigods, Nespirath and L'ghorek. These are giant immobile urchin-like creatures who Naz'jar is trying to corrupt to use against Neptulon, and the player attempts to free them. Despite resembling beings who might be affiliated with the Old Gods, Nespirath and L'ghorek are more benevolent entities. Though your interactions with them are limited, they are apparently a preview to a similar third creature who is to be a boss battle in a later dungeon in the Abyssal Maw.

Dungeon: Throne of the Tides

The action of Vashj'ir culminates in a battle to secure the entrance to the Abyssal Maw, which the naga win. Just as the characters are about to regroup, the leviathan Ozumat grabs Erunak with its tentacle and pulls him in. Nazgrim follows in the hopes of saving him. Nazgrim is then found just inside the dungeon entrance and commands you to find Erunak and free him, and kill Lady Naz'jar.

The dungeon is engaging enough. Aside from Commander Ulthok the bosses are all significant characters from the Vashj'ir storyline, and the fights are generally straightforward but demanding - you can learn the mechanics with ease but you need to be paying attention. All round, the dungeon serves as a good conclusion to Vashj'ir. The only problem I had with it is that the final battle with Ozumat is disappointingly easy - you find Neptulon under attack by Ozumat and must protect him from waves of murlocs and faceless, after which Neptulon gives the party a buff that makes them all but invincible, at which point you turn on Ozumat. You can lose key members of your party to the waves and still survive the fight with Ozumat, and as a rogue, it's impossible to attack Ozumat from behind, so you can't employ your more devastating strategies on it. But at least it's a fight with a lot of weight to it lore-wise, and Neptulon's involvement makes it epic enough in the greater scope of the Vashj'ir story.

The Innkeeper's Daughter

Warcraft Review: Cataclysm in General

So here's how zones have come to be structured. You get a breadcrumb quest from a call or command board within a city, you follow it to an outpost in the zone. This outpost has a couple quests to get you acquainted with what's going on, introduce conflicts and the forces at play in the area. You do a few rounds of questing, then are moved on to a new outpost elsewhere in the zone, that expands upon your actions at the earlier outpost. Usually you move from a town or substantial settlements to staging areas and camps. Another few rounds of quests. This goes on maybe four or five times. You're always moving, there's little backtracking, and one thing follows from the other. Most questlines have unique mechanics at some point in them, and you find yourself frequently participating in large scale battles and joining notable heroes against powerful foes. Structurally, World of Warcraft is the best it's ever been. It's actually fun to quest - you're reading your quest log again, and the scale of the story as you experience is pretty cool. You feel like you're impacting the story much more than before. So there is all that. Unfortunately, there's still a lot to complain about.

Questing and levelling is fun, and the game as a whole has reduced the compunction to grind significantly. But there's still a whole lot of it. I don't throw up my hands every time I have to retrace my steps, but the same dungeon run once a day for two weeks isn't that fun - and dungeon grinding is the funner of grinds. We start talking about dailies and reputations and professions and it's absolutely mind-numbing. But these grinds are necessary now even to casual players if you want to stay competitive in any arena of endgame material which has been made so much more casual-friendly. But it's cheating - it's a trick to keep players playing the same thing over again so they can play new stuff when it finally comes out. And when finally it does come out, there's a new grind with it.

For example, archaeology. What the hell kind of profession is that? When it was first announced, Blizzard called it a profession you could focus on "in your downtime." I had no idea what they meant then, and I have even less of an idea what they mean after bringing archaeology up a few levels. It can't help but create downtime. Every other profession allows you to make something of use to you: equipment, enhancements, toys, reagents, et cetera. Archaeology allows you to make vendor trash - and fairly cheap vendor trash at that. Ostensibly, the reward is the lore, which should actually make it the profession I get behind. But the thing is: the lore tidbits that accompany each piece of vendor trash, while fun, don't leave my character with anything they can keep. So really, I can fully appreciate that reward by going on Wowpedia and reading it there. Completing it in game offers me nothing extra except, I guess, a minor sense of accomplishment? For tabbing out and blogging while my character flies between digsites?

Oh I know, I know. What about Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds? The Innkeeper's Daughter? That adorable little baby raptor skeleton? And yeah, these are sweet items that anyone would want, but you stumble upon them based solely on luck. In another profession, if you want to be able to make something, there is a clear path to making that happen. If you want to make elixir A you must gain reputation with faction B. It's a grind but at least it's a grind with a finish line. You want the Bones of Transformation, just dig aimlessly. Don't have a night elf digsite? Better dig at some other one until one opens up. You might get it. Maybe not, though. Just keep digging.

The endgame grinds are just so tedious, and it's made worse by the fact that questing has been refined into such a smooth experience with good pacing; when you break 85 and finish questing your zone dry the game slows to a muddy slog almost immediately. You have to work hard on the same material over and over before you're outfitted to enter heroics and hold your ground. Then you have to run the same heroics repeatedly before you're outfitted for raids. It doesn't ever stop.

But the focus was split into many different things, this time, with an emphasis on endgame but a revisit to all the mid-level content we've all slogged through on all our different characters in the past. And the revisited zones are great. Questing's come a long long way since World of Warcraft and it shows. Zones that have gotten the full treatment are incredibly well done. Unfortunately, a whole lot of zones haven't. Now, I haven't had the chance to play through everything yet, but I've quested a few zones of varying levels, started a couple of new characters, and I'm shocked by how half-assed some of this is. I'll compare.

I started a night elf mage and found the Shadowglen to be virtually identical to its earlier incarnation. Iverron is still waiting for someone to cure his poison after five years. I kept on playing expecting a phase to come in, announcing that the cataclysm had occurred and all that, but no such luck. And things don't improve once you finish up in Shadowglen and go to Dolanaar. The starting experience has been tweaked to be a little more streamlined, but it's essentially the same, and I was incredibly disappointed with that. Especially when the new race/class combinations encouraging players to start new character, it felt ridiculous to be running the same quests over again.

Darkshore has been completely overhauled, and it's wicked (which is even more impressive considering how boring it used to be). It's got a really solid story that keeps you moving and interested. Several elements have been added to make it much easier to travel through, and the quests are varied and fun. There's still the staple "kill x murlocs" and "find x dirt clumps" or whatever but the numbers are generally smaller and they mix it up enough to keep it exciting. Once I finished it, I was surprised at how much fun it was, and was optimistic about the new expansion.

So then I hopped on a Horde character and played through Arathi Highlands. I had very high hopes for Arathi and maybe I did it to myself, but I was again severely disappointed. Some modest improvements and indication that time has passed. But the quests are all completely identical. The quest hubs are arranged so you're generally not going to the same area multiple times, which is nice, but still, there were no quests here I hadn't done before. You have NPCs telling you these are the same quests you've done before. It's maddening. What's more is that the prevalence of elementals in the area and the impact of "The Princess Trapped" questline made Arathi ideally suited to be of importance to the elemental war raging after the cataclysm, but the quests here are so untouched they may as well have been left alone completely.

I wasn't expecting every single zone to be redone. Everything since The Burning Crusade is tolerable. But what I had thought we were going to get with Cataclysm was a revamp of every old world zone, and that's not what we got. Blizzard is still capable of making a good game, that's very clear, but what's also clear is how cheap and flippant they can be with their own material, and they're high profile enough at this point that there's not really an excuse for it.