Well, I have to say that I’ve finally walked outside and seen the light of day. It’s been pretty hard to do anything else, considering how much fun that Legion has been. Breaking an utterly stale formula that has garnered much criticism over the last few years, it seems that Blizzard is finally learning their lesson regarding anything that has to do with MMO content. Providing original story line, throwing new challenges in, and pumping out content faster, Blizzard seems to be on board with fan criticisms, and this expansion is all the better for it.
In the past, WoW (World of Warcraft) was a juggernaut in the industry. Trumping the player base of most games, and arguably expanding the MMO genre to a worldwide phenomenon, WoW was nothing to be messed with. However, in the last few expansions that followed Blizzard’s beloved Wrath of the Lich King expansion, a large amount of player dissatisfaction was bubbling to a boil. Culminating in a mass player exodus during their last expansion, Warlords of Draenor, Blizzard seems to have finally gotten the motivation they need to do something different for a change. However, it’s hard to blame them. Keeping a twelve year old game fresh is no easy task. Certainly not a task that many other companies can maintain.
Legion seeks to break the monotony of typical endgame grind with interesting ideas that aren’t necessarily innovative, but they are a breath of fresh air. Artifact weapons and class hall campaign give each character that you play a feeling of uniqueness. Earning their own class specific title like, “HuntMaster”, or “Deathlord”, or even “Grandmaster” make you feel like you’ve leapt to the highest point of your order. Artifact weapons and their quest give a much needed feeling of lore to each individual class, as well as their efforts to combat the invading Burning Legion forces. The story and consequences are also ramped up to eleven, so character deaths are abundant, even within the first few minutes!
Leveling is much improved as well. Legion tends to find a way to keep things fresh. I’ve gone through the zones six or seven times with all of my alts, and still don’t mind going back in. It’s when I have to go back to the previous zones like Draenor or even further back to Pandaria that I find myself dying slowly inside as if all hope is being slowly and monotonously sucked out of me. Zone scaling helps to also let you do the zones in whatever order you want, so you don’t find yourself dreading too much of the grind through certain zones. Leveling is also fairly quick, so you shouldn’t find yourself in a place that you hate too much for too long. Highmountain particularly was a high point for me, as I found the story to be extremely entertaining.
PVP and endgame content have also been completely revamped. PVP feels much more fluid with the removal of resistance gear. It’s much more of a jump in, jump out feeling, which I’ve always felt that it should be. If you casually PVP, you can get into games and have a lot more fun because you won’t be competing against folks who have spent a month grinding out every piece of resilience gear that they can possibly have. It’s a good feeling.
Endgame PVE feels like there are many more dimensions to it than ever before. Mythic and Mythic + dungeons amp up the difficulty so that you’re always feeling like a new challenge is ahead of you. On top of this, a new tier of raiding in the mythic difficulty helps to make you feel like kings of the world when you conquer the hardest boss fights. With much faster content patches, Blizzard seems to be in top form with all of the content that is featured this expansion.
So, is Legion worth your money? Yes! Will it suck hours of your life away? Oh god, yes. I can’t sing enough praises to Blizzard for revitalizing a game that has been gasping for air for so long. Maybe my tune will change in time if they stop pumping out content. Maybe they’ll make a boneheaded business decision that will sour me away from the game altogether. However, for now, I can’t recommend that you go out and give Legion a chance enough. It’s a phenomenal expansion that takes WoW off of life support. We’re grading it a B+.
CulturED World 