World of Warcraft Showdown: Then Vs. Now
The latest Legion expansion for World of Warcraft launches on Tuesday. The game set the standard for MMORPGs in 2004 and paved the way for the modern MMO. Its subscriber base has dropped, but most games still wish they had a fraction of the success of WoW . Today we’ll take a look at how the game has evolved over time and how it folds into the shadow of its former self. …
Applicants
When World of Warcraft (or WoW) first came out in November 2004, it was a very different game than it is today. Rather than releasing World of Warcraft 2 or WoW: 3 , Blizzard is adding expansions that expand the game’s storyline and add new features. You probably already know all this, but it creates an interesting dynamic in which the current WoW exists in the same place as its predecessors. Legion will mark the game’s sixth expansion in twelve years. But are the best days of WoW over or here, right now? Here’s how we parse it:
- Of Warcraft world ( 2004-2010 ): All of its view that, when there were real “glory days» WoW. However, the base game (often referred to as “vanilla”) along with the first three expansions – Burning Crusade , Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm – make up the first half of the game’s life. We will approach this broad time period as “classic WoW”.
- World of Warcraft (Legion ): The latest expansion to WoW contains a ton of new stuff, including a new Demon Hunter class ,legendary artifact weapons from the world of WoW, and home bases where your class can hang out together . Aside from being one of Blizzard’s most ambitious expansions, Legion comes out the same year as the Warcraft movie . We’ll touch on why this is important, as well as how the game compares to classic WoW . We’ll also focus on most of the two recent expansions, Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor, because let’s face it, you probably did that too.
To cover as much as possible, I’ve been checking out the Legion beta for several weeks, and I’ve taken the time to revisit vanilla WoW through some unofficial channels (please don’t ban me Blizzard). However, WoW is huge . Part of the beauty of this game is that everyone can have different experiences in the same world. Be sure to share your own experiences at the end. You can also check out Kotaku’s in-depth tour of all the old add-ons here .
WoW used to seem more massive than it is now
Blizzard chose the title World of Warcraft for a very specific reason. When you first start exploring the game, it seems overwhelming . Each race has its own starting area with a group of quests that exist in your small area. You have to run painfully slowly from one village to another. By the time you get to the nearest capital, you think that it can’t be anymore. This is it. This is the main goal of the entire game.
But that’s not all. Take any direction, not over the ocean, and you can keep wandering forever. When you take your first flight from one city to another , it begins to sink into the depths. It really is a whole world . If you like, you can walk from one end of the continent to the other. Best of all, each area is teeming with quests, characters, and things to do. If you would like to level up one night elf while traveling from the capital city of Darnassus through Kalimdor, you can do so. You can then create an all-new gnome character that lives in Ironforge and roam the Eastern Kingdoms without seeing anything your night elf has seen.
The first couple of times you level up a character like that, that’s exciting. When you play the tenth character, it’s not that much fun. So over time, Blizzard has added things that make traveling the world easier. You can use your hearthstone to teleport back to a single home location. In Burning Crusade, Blizzard has added flights to new continents. In Cataclysm, they’ve added the ability to fly everywhere . Cata has also added a group of portals in major cities like Stormwind and Orgrimmar to destinations around the game world. In a way, Cata was a turning point where this whole feature started to grow into an edge.
Currently, you can hop on a flying animal to get around any awkward mountain. The Group Finder tools have made it much easier to find other players to play . If you want to join a dungeon or raid, finding a group will simply teleport you there. Many of them are functional, allowing people to easily travel long distances, quickly meet friends, and help other players.
However, by the time you get to Legion , all of these additions will make up a big world that feels really small. It only takes a few minutes to traverse the giant continents of WoW . Going through dungeons with someone on the other side of the planet is no more difficult than playing with someone in the same city as you. Blizzard is trying to deal with this by shutting down flights to the new continents you visit, but it only goes so far. The new Broken Isles territory in the Legion is beautiful, but it never conveys the same sense of greatness.
This change isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Walking everywhere is exhausting and can take away from the actual game. On the other hand, when you can teleport around the planet, fly past the landscape at 300% and ignore most of the little details, it can feel like Legion might just be a standalone game and not part of an ever-expanding world. While new players still have a little work to do at the lower levels, no one can go back and really feel the same limiting feeling of a world too big for your character.
Old WoW was heavier, but with better rewards
In vanilla WoW, you went from level 1 to level 60, at which point you reached the maximum level. It took months . Blizzard did not build huge virtual continents for nothing. If you wanted to reach the highest level, you had to work hard for it. The game has always put a lot of emphasis on what it calls “endgame content” (what you play when you hit max level), but in classic WoW, early quests mattered.
After several months of chopping to reach max level, you’ve finally got your fair reward: more chopping . Dungeons and raids offered new and larger challenges featuring epic characters from the Warcraft RTS series. This trend continued throughout the early game expansions. One of the most incredible moments in WoW history happened during Wrath of the Lich King, when you climbed the steps of Icecrown Citadel and fought your way through eleven raid bosses to slay the Lich King Arthas . It was a tough battle. Depending on your group, it could take weeks or months to get there. It was worth it.
Blizzard has rewarded this dedication. Early additions were filled with legendary weapons that were incredibly rare . Raid groups of forty people came together to defeat powerful bosses for the chance to get a weapon that can only be used by one person. These were incredible moments of collaboration. The few who won their hard-earned trophies carried them with pride.
In the Legion, literally everyone is given a legendary weapon at the start. It’s … pretty unimpressive. Don’t get me wrong, legendary weapons are cool and fun to explore (we’ll come back to that later). But with a team of NPCs, everyone agrees that you are the chosen one who deserves this incredibly powerful weapon that every other player is using is starting to seem a little cheesy.
One example where this gets really weird is with shamans. One of your Legion artifacts is the mighty Doom Hammer , an item with a rich history and in-game lore. These weapons were used by Orgrim and Thrall, two of the most important figures in Warcraft history. He even appears in the Warcraft movie carried by Orgrim, gigantic and covered in muscle. Above, you can see my tiny dwarf carrying it as if it belongs there or something. It’s a bit like protecting a teenage captain America’s shield . When you receive the Doomhammer, Thrall tells you that you are already stronger than him with him. Although heliterally killed Deathwing .
When you’re already a legendary hero early on, it becomes a little difficult to take any challenge seriously. WoW also made it easier to raid without a guild, so you can play without even working with friends in the long run. You get a lot of cool stuff, but it’s not that hard to make money. This hard work is rewarding. Without diligence, rewards can seem cheap or pointless. When everything is super, no one is there .
Legion is the most accessible game ever
If you’ve never played WoW before, this might be a good time to join. All of the changes that have watered down the classic WoW experience also make it easier for newcomers to participate in the story they are in now. You will receive a free upgrade to level 100 by purchasing Legion . If you don’t have time to join a guild and raid a few times a week, you can simply go to Group Finder to join strangers.
From the very beginning, the classes were also greatly simplified. In vanilla WoW, you had to collect ammo for your weapons, explore complex talent trees, and study the text of quest logs to figure out where you were going in the vast world. If you wanted to join a guild or play dungeons with friends, you had to install add-ons, read the forums, and prove that you can handle the pressure. Talents are much easier now , an organized quest journal will point you in the right direction , and no more ammo .
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily make the game easy . It’s just easier. You will still work for hours collecting hides and herbs, killing mobs, and digging through feces . You still have to learn the mechanics of raid bosses, which is not easy. New players won’t be able to simplylog in to battle Xavius in The Emerald Nightmare and count onsuccess . Heck, new players probably can’t expect to know what half of the words in this guide mean (or it actually is) or even what The Emerald Nightmare really is. New players have a lot to learn, and the raid boss mechanics are stillridiculously complex .
If you want to try the higher difficulty levels, Blizzard allows you to do so anyway. Heroic and Mythic versions of dungeons and raids offer more challenging challenges, better rewards, and require more coordination. The only difference is that players now have a clearer path to this.
Blizzard is finally learning how to tell stories in Legion
If you didn’t have time to join a guild and go through huge raids in the old days of WoW, you weren’t able to see the real story of the game. I ran into this problem when I was running Cataclysm . The giant black dragon Deathwing was destroying the world. I wanted to know how this story would end. At the same time, I worked more than 80 hours a week and raids were not possible. I still haven’t returned to finally kill Deathwing. The old forays were even harder. If you want to defeat Illidan at the Black Temple or kill Arthas at Icecrown Citadel, you better have some free time. These guys were the main antagonists of their expansions, and if you haven’t raided, you’ve never seen them.
In Legion, these dynamics are all turned upside down. The opening episodes will take you through a series of scripted scenarios with voice acting, character interactions, and a better understanding of what is happening in the world around you. You will meet the big villain Gul’dan at the start of the Demon Hunter questline. If you are playing now during the pre-launch Demon Invasions, you can team up with everyone on your server to take down the massive raid bosses just roaming the starting area. Finding a group also means that since you can jump into a raid with strangers, you won’t lose access to the final story unless you can “git gud”. It will be tricky and some assholes may complain, but this is an easy mode. They will live.
Your character is also more important to the story. In classic WoW, you are a farmhand with no skills, killing random boars in the forest to bring meat to a local. In the Legion, you are the grandmaster in charge of your entire class . Yes, every player plays a guy who is in charge of all the other players in his class. This is strange.
However, this approach draws you into the story. For example, my mage in the Legion will be rebuilding the Hall of the Guardian . For most of my WoW experience, I do not know, that was a keeper. In fact, I only learned about this from the Warcraft movie . While I was busy missing out on all the high-level content in earlier WoW expansions, I was missing out on these mythical elements. In Legion, you will now be face to face with the characters throughout the expansion, and not just at the very end of the raids. Sometimes it feels like it forces you to play the role of an almighty hero, but it means you feel less disconnected.
So far, it has done more good than harm. Warcraft has an incredibly rich history, and Legion uses its new features as a way to connect players directly with it. It might be a little silly to make your character the Chosen One , but this framing device allows you to explore the various factions and characters in the Warcraft universe on a more intimate level.
World of Warcraft is no longer the game it used to be and, with the exception of some massive legacy server projects, will never be official. However, what we have now is not bad. Blizzard has stumbled on something in recent years. While I had a little fun with Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor , each of these additions felt like a strange offshoot of WoW rather than a central part of a bigger story.
Legion is a return to the roots of WoW, retaining many of the best elements Blizzard has refined over the years. From a lore standpoint, we can see the return of some of the main characters with a fresh eye (as a side note, I highly recommend reading Illidan’s book as a backstory for the new demon hunters). We get new weapons, new challenges, and much better ways to relive this epic story. Despite updates and improvements, the game looks good. That said, both old and new players may at least share the same opinion about one thing that hasn’t changed over the years of WoW :
Fuck these boats.