Byte-Sized Worlds

I don’t usually think much of the level boosts included with World of Warcraft expansion purchases. I’m not a fan of boosting characters since I end up having no attachment to the character in question. But this time was different.

The War Within preorder came with an “enhanced” level 70 boost — one of Blizzard’s most generous yet. Unlike prior boosts designed to give you instant access to the current expansion content, War Within’s takes you directly to Dragonflight’s end game. You’ll get a massive amount of reputation with all of Dragonflight’s factions, servicable late-game gear, and five dragon mounts normally acquired thru the expansion campaign.

As someone who has played thru Dragonflight several times already but can’t seem to decide on a character, this boost was a godsend. I used it on my old Dwarf Warrior from the Mists of Pandaria/Draenor days. And immediately, I could jump into the latest and greatest content: The Emerald Dream.

And wow, what a zone. Maybe it’s because Dragonflight’s main zones set a low bar. But this incarnation of the Emerald Dream is certainly my favourite zone from the expansion, and one of WoW’s best zones overall.

Where Dragonflight’s zones were verdant but unremarkable, the Emerald Dream is immersive and entrancing. The lush, green scenery is no less impressive than that of the Waking Shores or the Azure Span. And unlike the aforementioned, there’s a wind at your back as you fight to defend the Green Dragonflight and new World Tree in the zone’s epic main questline. This especially pleased me, as many Dragonflight zone quests had this ho-hum, lackadasical quest pacing that struggled to keep me engaged.

And the music! Haunting and dramatic in that old-school WoW way — akin to Tedrassil or Azshara. Waking Shores had this goofy, country-twang zone theme that made me want to throw up my feet and fish at a riverbank rather than liberate the Dragon Isles from evil. Thankfully that’s gone and Emerald Dream feels far more reminiscent of WoW‘s elder days and even Shadowlands where the world felt more perilous and the stakes higher.

I do have some criticisms though. While the zone “vibes” are immaculate, the later-stage quest quality does nosedive somewhat. As the Green Dragonflight fights back against the primalists, you’re essentially appointed to “Clean-Up Crew”: Zipping around the bloody battles in progress to inspire fellow warriors or click quest objects instead of participating in the bloodshed. It’s a little weird and unsatisfying, but I get that Blizzard is trying to convey that you’re getting swept up in a larger conflict.

So if you were unimpressed with Dragonflight’s questing but want to pick up WoW again, this boost is perfect. It’ll let you jump right into this newest, higher-quality content and not have to worry about the rest of the Dragon Isles. Best of all, one boost is included with all versions of the latest expansion pre-order. They also include all Dragonflight content, meaning newcomers to the expansion can get caught up without paying for or drowning in what I’d consider a sea of mediocrity and one of WoW’s least remarkable expansions.

When I woke up this morning, I happened to see an article about a limited-time World of Warcraft mount. The post detailed how the “Spirit of Eche’ro” spectral moose mount will become temporarily unobtainable after today, Feb 19th, 2024 — but will return sometime later.

I’m not usually one to FOMO into mount grinding, but a few things caught my eye here. One, I liked the mount’s look — an azure moose spectre in the Highmountain style. And two, the post said the requisite Archeology profession grind would take about two-to-three hours.

Now that I can respect. I was already feeling good about today being a holiday and day off work. But the prospect of making away with a sweet time-limited mount in WoW for a few hour’s work raised my spirits that much more.

It had been years since I last set foot in Legion’s Broken Isles zones. And now that Blizzard enabled worldwide dragonriding, it was fun revisiting the land of Highmountain and beyond from a truly airborne perspective. I even chose to grind this on my Highmountain character for extra immersion and sentimentality. I think Neltharion’s lair still remains my most-played instance since back in the day — I wanted to unlock Highmountain Tauren badly for whatever reason!

The grind itself was simple enough. Scan, run to, and dig up archeology sites until you’ve collected a whopping six hundred bones. Then turn them in and the mount is yours.

Unfortunately, as is typical for the race, the Eche’ro mount is a little small for my Highmountain Tauren character. It still looks cool, and I’ve seen worse. But there’s definitely some character clipping happening here.

That said, the mount is account wide and looks much better with my Dracthyr Evoker. Size ain’t everything!

If you’re reading this on February 19th, the mount is still available — but not for much longer! According to the original post, you’ll have until tomorrow, Tuesday, February 20th to bust this ghost for yourself.

After burning out on Starfield and a short stint with Lord of the Rings Online, I have returned once more to World of Warcraft’s Azeroth. At this point, I predictably revisit WoW every six to eight months, despite “swearing it off” several times. It’s not that I’m addicted to WoW: Rather, it’s gaming comfort food for me — especially in the absence of anything greater. And clunky, stilted Lord of the Rings Online ain’t it, let me tell ya.

Since resubscribing to WoW, I’ve been trying to decide what character to “main.” The new Dracthyr Evoker class was in the running for a bit: They’re a Dragon mage-priest hybrid with some satisfying airborne mobility. But I encountered the same hang-up as before: As spellcasters, their damaging spells lack impact. Seeing my dragon exhale clouds of red and blue vapor at enemies isn’t satisfying. It has all the drama and intensity of vaping — and isn’t much cooler (although I imagine the Disintegrate ability is decidely minty fresh).

So instead of all that dragon vapist nonsense, I’ve settled on my old Warlock from Legion/Battle for Azeroth. Unlike Evoker, the Warlock Destruction spec is satisfying to play and has a palpable power curve: As your smoldering abilities burn brighter, your hellish attacks ramp in power, eventually reducing your foes to piles of ash.

Of course, the problem with maining a damage-only class like Warlock is that I’ll never be able to heal or tank. Although I’ve never been one for tanking. And I didn’t paticularly enjoy healing on my Evoker. So maybe there’s not much to miss.

Anyway, my current goal is to get my Warlock to level 70. Onwards in Azeroth!

World of Warcraft and I have a strange relationship. We seem to fall in-and-out of love, experiencing bouts of contempt before reuniting blissfully time and time again. This “rekindling” seems to happen due to my affinity for polish and presentation: WoW outclasses its competition in these categories, but often falls short in others (gameplay depth, personalization). Nevertheless, I return to it time and time again because it runs so smoothly and feels so good to play.

Dragonflight was, by all acounts, a bog-standard expansion; One of the most milquetoast Blizzard has ever released. I continue to feel gaslit by players that champion it as one of the best. So it’s safe to say I’d reigned-in expectations for the next WoW expansion.

However, having felt unsatisfied with the other games I’ve been playing, I perused WoW news to see what I had missed since Blizzcon 2023’s big expansion reveal. It turns out there’s a War brewing.

It’s strange to me that Blizzard chose a subterranean expansion theme for The War Within, since Dragonflight’s later patches featured a new under-earth zone (Zaralek Cavern). We even got a new earth-dwelling race, the Loam Niffen rodents. Perhaps Blizzard liked the idea too much to stop there. Or perhaps they were just offering us a taste of what’s to come.

In any case, I’m lukewarm about the War Within’s general theme and style. I like what I played of Zaralek Cavern. And we certainly haven’t had subterranean expansions before. I also can’t blame them for taking us underground when we’ve thoroughly explored Azeroth’s surface. But Journey to the Center of the Earth a la Azeroth? It’s hardly exciting. I suppose it’s leagues better than Dragonflight’s painfully familiar and recycled biomes though.

Speaking of recycling, Blizzard has some balls to recycle Dwarves again with the expansion’s new allied race, the “Earthen.” We already got rock-fleshed Dwarves years ago with Battle for Azeroth’s Dark Iron Dwarf race. They even have pale grey flesh just like the Earthen. Are we seriously supposed to be excited because the Earthen have more rockiness and gems in their skin textures?

You can sense players’ lack of excitement for the Earthen in the Blizzcon presentation videos. I suppose it’s nice to have Horde-side Dwarves, since Earthen are faction-neutral. But still. What a disappointment. Keep in mind that we got a new, non-playable race of subterranean rodents just a few patches ago. I may race change my Horde-side Shaman to an Earthen, but I can’t see myself mustering up more enthusiasm than that.

So there you have it: The War Within is most certainly a mixed bag. We’ll see how things shape up in the coming months — the expansion is set to release sometime this year.

Here’s a thought: World of Warcraft’s character progression design has changed and even diverged over time. To explain, I’ll directly compare the progression in retail (modern) WoW versus Classic.

WoW Classic: Intrinsic character progression

• Stats (weapon skills improve with use; attributes increase with each level)
• Abilities
• Talent points

WoW Retail: Extrinsic character progression (Dragonflight)

• Faction reputation
• Upgrading gear with altered power systems (engine of innovation; primalist gear; elemental overflow)
• Talent points awarded with level-ups, but no weapon progression or attribute increases

Maybe it’s because I’ve hit endgame in retail and not Classic. But classic feels more like Dungeons & Dragons whereas retail feels more like an action game.