World of Warcraft: Midnight

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Early access starts Thursday afternoon, Pacific Time, with the game's full launch coming on Monday, I think. I'm planning to take a sick day on Friday with the cough cough Midnight flu.

Given that they sweetened the pot with early access to player housing for pre-purchasing Midnight, I suspect most current WoW players also have early access.

I am not a fan of the elves of Azeroth, but this looks extremely well done, although I would love it if we could learn more about the Void than it's bad. I'm not sure what they want, beyond "eeeeverything," which makes them less interesting than the Burning Legion. But this is a better creative team, IMO, than the previous Cosby Suite one, so I'm optimistic that the lore is coming.

I'm most excited to see the redone Quel'Thalas, as it'll be a preview for what they're doing with Northrend in The Last Titan. Like many people, Northrend was my favorite expansion and there's so many loose threads there that I can't wait to see picked up.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Also, while I'm not generally that interested in blood elf lore, I do find the blood knights -- including Liadrin -- to be the most interesting of the bunch.

A group of paladins who switched from being powered by arcane energy from the Sunwell to draining a naaru prisoner when the Sunwell was extinguished and now guarding the now-Light-based Sunwell have gone on a moral journey, especially since it's reasonable to assume that some of them left the order when the choice was to torture an alien being indefinitely, and probably others quietly never saw what the big deal was.

Although Uther and Arthas get all the attention, Warcraft has extremely interesting takes on paladins all around. Not a lot of Lawful Stupid happening, although very few of them are Lawful Good, either.

 

[trappedslider]

despite having access to the beta, my adhd has prevented me from doing more than the first quest

 

[Distracted DM]

A friend got me back into WoW about a month ago by buying me the midnight xpac and some extras. They've done the same previously trying to get me back into WoW but I really have not been in the mood to play tab-to-target MMO-style games in a looooong time. But I guess it's been long enough, or it was just at the right time between game hyperfixations, cuz I'm back in. I did the whole Midnight prerelease questline (you don't need the xpac for it IIRC, it's available to all). Also leveling is SO FAST now it's insane. I've been trying to do the storylines for the expansions I missed but I'd keep outleveling them before I finished

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A friend got me back into WoW about a month ago by buying me the midnight xpac and some extras. They've done the same previously trying to get me back into WoW but I really have not been in the mood to play tab-to-target MMO-style games in a looooong time. But I guess it's been long enough, or it was just at the right time between game hyperfixations, cuz I'm back in. I did the whole Midnight prerelease questline (you don't need the xpac for it IIRC, it's available to all). Also leveling is SO FAST now it's insane. I've been trying to do the storylines for the expansions I missed but I'd keep outleveling them before I finished

I think there's a lore catch-up questline now that gets you through all of those in a fast forwarded fashion.

 

[Xenolith234]

I haven't played WoW in quite some time...but is it just me that doesn't find that trailer very visually inspiring? I remember the older ones looking really amazing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I haven't played WoW in quite some time...but is it just me that doesn't find that trailer very visually inspiring? I remember the older ones looking really amazing.

The hyper-realistic graphics on this one have been pretty divisive. I think it also helps fire you up if you're Team Blood Elf.

 

[Xenolith234]

I think it's several things - the trailer looks very generic, and for me I didn't see any particularly recognizable characters like I'm used to in the trailers (except maybe the blood elf guy, but he looks different than I remember). With Microsoft's rampant push for AI, I can't help but wonder if they didn't use AI in a manner to help make the trailer and dialogue.