BlizzCon 2017: Of Course There's a New Expansion

BlizzCon 2017 began today. Being primarily a World of Warcraft player, I expected a new expansion announcement and I was not disappointed. For nuts and bolts and pictures galore, I refer you to WOWHead and its many posts made about as fast as the word got said in various panels this afternoon. (Have your adblocks up.) So I will just talk about the notable stuff mentioned today. HERE BE SPOILERS!

Battle For Azeroth is the title. The expansion goes over a Total World War between the Alliance and the Horde. The Horde loses the Undercity to an Alliance military invasion of Lordaeron that razes to the ground, while the Alliance loses Teldrassil to a Horde military assault that burns the failed World Tress to ash. Both losing fronts are pushed by to their rumps, which forms the first of the Warfront battle lines in this expansion.

The war quickly escalates, requiring not only a global search for resources (and the territory it requires), but also the need for new allies to rally to the banner and join the fight. These are Allied Races, and each side gains three at launch; more are going to be added down the road. The Horde gain the Highmountain Tauren and Nightborne Elves of the Broken Isles as well as the Zandalari Trolls of Zandalar. The Alliance gain the Lightforged Draenei and Void Elves that appeared during the Argus campaign against the Burning Legion, and the Dark Iron Dwarves are fully rehabilitated into the Alliance.

As the presence of the Zandalari implies, the search for allies brings heretofore unseen lands into the game. The Horde begin their expansion in Zandalar, having to aid the trolls there against their enemies to secure the allegience thereof. The Alliance goes to Kul Tiras and must do likewise to return that nation to the fold. Using both states' powerful navies, they scour the seas for strategic locations to secure or plunder.

These are the Island Expeditions, three-man Scenarios where Role is irrelevant. Three PVE difficulties and one PVP option. Meant to farm the new Artifact Power (Azurite, the crystallized blood of the World Soul Azeroth), which is used to empower the one new Artifact we gain (Heart of Azeroth, given at the start by Speaker Magni Bronzebeard on Azeroth's behalf) to make up for those we lose going out of Legion. We slowly gain powerup options on the armor pieces we gain (which are NEVER random in what options they offer).

Those Warfronts? They are 20-man PVE Scenarios, modeled on the play experience of Warcraft 1 & 2- you start at a Town Hall and have to build out a tech tree in order to build up an army and get into their base to kill their mans and gank their general. The first one in the Eastern Kingdoms is Stromgarde in the Arathi Highlands and the map is an all-new HD remake of the live zone map. None for Kalimdor announced yet, but we can expect it to be near the Exodar and Darkshire.

Yes, the level cap got raised 120. No, leveling won't be the chore it is now; a lot of tech rolled out specifically for Legion, as many expected, is going to be applied to the rest of the game: level scaling, zone-agnosticism (level where you like), World Quests and Emissaries, and so on. Dungeons get this too. This will be nice, because once you unlock an Allied Race via its specific quest chain (an account-wide unlock) your new man starts at Level 20 and can go wherever to adventure. If you get that man to 110, you unlock (account-wide) a unique appearance set called "Heritage Armor" and it is NOT locked to armor types.

And that's what's documented.

Undocumented, but seen in the demo available on the floor: a massive stat squish (back to Wrath levels), a massive Item Level squish (ditto), the return of castable buffs (Mark of the Wild, we missed you.), and graphics that mean you ought to upgrade your PC if you want a decent framerate. Potato people, start banking for a new PC now.

And that's about all I have to say for now. Tomorrow I'll get more information (I hope), and I will talk about the other games and features that I think will seriously change the Blizzard end of videogaming (Hint: Overwatch's voice chat will come to Heroes, WOW, and the Blizzard App making outside VOIP apps irrelevant and unnecessary because Overwatch's chat is GOOD!)