Raccoon the grizzled Outlaw Rogue stands in demon-besieged Dalaran, moments before Azeroth’s greatest mages pull off their most amazing feat yet: making me even more alt-crazy than I already was. Judging from the first few hours, Legion is going to be a very good problem for me.
The shot above was captured moments before the quest launching World of Warcraft’s sixth expansion pack popped up on my screen at 2:52 AM Eastern.
With a click of a ridiculously crowded Archmage Khadgar, the assembled mages of Dalaran launched a cutscene, transporting the magical city from the skies over Deadwind Pass to the skies over The Broken Isles. I captured the first ten minutes or so of the experience in a commentary-free video below. If you want commentary, scroll on down.
Now that the regular demon invasions of Azeroth are done (and they will be missed) and the Demon Hunters are unleashed, it’s time to switch focus to two of the new expansion’s other core focuses. To be honest, I’d almost completely forgotten about Class Order Halls and Artifact Weapons, what with all of those demons. Within moments of stepping out in the newly-displaced Dalaran, World of Warcraft reminds us.
In the case of Raccoon, who my nephew convinced me I should main (focus on over my other characters) for the expansion, a courier found me on the city’s flight platform, slipping me a message urging me to attend a clandestine meeting.
I’d like to think Raccoon is a nickname earned decades ago during some shady dealings.
The quest led me to “Oh yeah that’s right, this expansion has Order Halls for each character class!” For Rogues that’s an underground sanctum hidden behind the bookcase of an unassuming storefront, which is pretty much perfect. Raccoon was guided to a banquet hall where he found himself surrounded by some of the most famous Rogues in Azeroth. They’re The Uncrowned, and they’d like him to be one of their leaders.
Lord Jorach Ravenholdt and Raccoon are twinsies!
That’s right, I get to be a leader in Club Rogue, sharing a table with the likes of Valeera Sanguinar, famous companion to that guy who recently died. It’s complicated. Lore fans will get it.
Valeera and Raccoon are best buds now.
Soon after Raccoon was initiated, it was time for Legion to remind me of its other big feature. After listening to tales of legendary weapons from three legendary Rogues, I was given a choice of which of them to go and fetch.
An easy choice, if you’re committed to your specialisation.
Herein lies the problem I’m going to have with Legion. Not only does each character class feature an epic quest to obtain a legendary artifact weapon, but each class specialisation has one as well. If they’re all of the same quality as the Outlaw Rogue quest I went on this morning, then I am going to have to experience as many of them as humanly (or gnomely) possible.
For the Outlaw Rogue’s quest, Raccoon is tasked with recovering the Dreadblades from the Dread Admiral Eliza, who has captured your Uncrowned cohort Fleet Admiral Tethys’ ship with her undead pirate crew.
Thar be a new ship in Booty Bay, arrrrr.
We sailed from Booty Bay on the Cape of Stranglethorn to a remote location on the coast of the Broken Isles. What followed was a sometimes gruelling test that made damn sure I knew how to play an Outlaw Rogue before letting me have my shiny new toys. We’re talking stealthing through a minefield patrolled by skeletons with stealth-breaking bone dogs to “coerce” a target, infiltrating a heavily-guarded base and taking down a massive enemy using a combination of finesse and positioning.
Your allies will fire on this beast, but only if he’s in the right spot.
But wait, there’s more. I had to then breach an ancient temple, disarming a water trap by killing a series of sorcerous skeletons that I was pretty sure were bugged. I battled them for a half hour, and they would not die. I thought it was glitched. I logged in and out again. I restarted the questline. Finally my far-too-tired eyes realised the enemies were casting a complete heal on themselves that I was supposed to interrupt using the many buttons on my hot bar dedicated to doing just that.
Eventually I wasn’t a f***ing idiot.
Then there was a battle with a pair of enemies through a collapsing tunnel, because that’s the sort of thing that happens to roguish adventurers all the time. One extended battle with the evil Admiral after that, and The Dreadblades were mine.
You’ve gotta work for them, but that just makes getting them feel so much better.
Artifact weapons are powerful items with the best stats, the best damage, the best enhancements and the odd special ability. In the case of The Dreadblades, I can activate a skill that makes every attack I land add a combo point (a resource for activating powerful Rogue skills) at the cost of my health. They are cursed blades, after all.
Back in Rogue HQ, Raccoon is challenged by my favourite NPC of all-time, Vanessa VanCleef. The boss of the post-Cataclysm Deadmines dungeon whose goal is getting revenge for the death of her father, one of early WoW’s most fondly-remembered bad guys, Vanessa VanCleef is a master manipulator and capable combatant. Whenever I’m in Westfall I spend most of my time telling every NPC in the zone that she’s secretly a traitor. They never listen, stupid NPCs.
When your bae shows up in your underground lair.
Well, now she’s my underling, which is about the best thing ever. I am never going to let her live Westfall down. “Hey Vanessa, remember that time you posed as a member of a prominent farming family for years, only to have your grand scheme thwarted by me and a random dungeon group?” Good times.
Once that was taken care of, Raccoon unlocked his weapon’s skill tree (artifact weapons get skill trees, and I love a skill tree) before hitting up the base’s deployment board to pick one of four adventure destinations.
Nothing like the promise of an empty skill tree.
Legion does away with the old method of breaking up new zones by level, instead scaling content to the player’s own level, leaving where to head next completely up to them.
Decisions, decisions.
Eventually Raccoon and I decided to accompany Sky Admiral Rogers on an adventure in Stormheim, because nothing ever goes wrong when you’re with Sky Admiral Rogers.
Everything goes wrong with Sky Admiral Rogers. She is the worst.
At this point it was getting up on 5 AM, and I was very, very tired, so I decided to call it a night.
I GOT A GUN AND A WOLF. A WOLF GUN. GUNWOLF.
Or maybe I took my Gnome Hunter through her artifact weapon quest, which tested every aspect of my Beast Mastery specialisation, pushing my abilities to the limit and rewarding me with a magical gun that basically grants me an additional Hunter pet. He’s a lightning wolf, and he’s the only thing keeping the power of Titanstrike in check.
I did sleep, eventually, for about an hour, and I’ll sleep some more, but the other five level 100 characters on my account, the ones who haven’t joined their class clubs or gone on a defining quest for an epic armament, are making very loud noises in the back of my head.
We’re going to have issues, World of Warcraft: Legion and me. It’s going to be awesome.
Two down, five to go.
Comments
18 responses to “World Of Warcraft: Legion Starts Really Well”
The warrior stronghold is very…… Thor like…
I hated those movies…..
It started at 5PM for me. No real quest bottlenecks, no restarts, no lag – it was a perfect launch.
Credit where credit is due, Blizzard have pulled off a perfect expansion launch thus far!
Multiple zones to start questing in and instanced artifact quest lines must help a great deal.
Now only if I could stop getting artifacts on every one of my alts before I start levelling one to 110.
I did my beast master hunter quest line last night to. If by testing every aspect of your beast mastery specialisation you mean shooting some bad guys and hitting some buttons then yes. Was good but predictable. The rogue quest line sounds much more imaginative.
I went to the druid zone, quite enjoyable so far.
Also i had no problems logging in and playing, no lag, no hordes of people, was great. I noticed Frostmourne (server) was locked so it might have been different. Caelestrasz was fine.
“No hordes of people” is that due to the decline in subscriptions? Or the instanced zones?
The artifact quests are all solo instances. I didnt get past that with my main, I wanted to get a demon hunter going (was fun), but to the point of getting your specialisation weapon, everything was instanced.
The entry from Stormwind into Legion was a shared instance, with a raid from both horde and alliance sides working together for a common goal. Separated enough you cant really interact, but clearly a combined effort. I wonder if we’ll see a point in a month or two where there arent enough people doing that instance…
Having a blast so far!
Thrall gave me Doomhammer.
Doomhammer.
I’m the new Farseer. Sup.
You play Horde or something lame dont you Pete?
They call me ARCHDRUID DRUVOS!
No way. I go by the name of Riverbeard. I didnt know you still played? Add meh.
Zzzonked #6686
Welcome to Broken Isles I will be greeting you… oh you dont have a powerful weapon or an army. Here take these!
I felt some of the reasons the artifact was left lying around or was not taken until just the moment when you arrived were hilariously weak.
So many powerful weapons only 5 easy steps and a balanced fight to get your hands on ultimate power. (until level 102 when you can get the rest)… one guy cried he got beaten dropped his ultimate weapons and ran away.
now if we could have a magical fix for DDoS then it will be actually be perfect
I still cant help but see how dated the graphics look.
I thought the opposite actually. I havent played for a number of years, and picked this week to have a look to see how it stacks up against all those other games going for photo realistic, and was pleasantly surprised how well it stacked up.
I thought the cartoony styling was still effective, and hadnt dated at all. Unlike other games that were cutting edge at one point, but look sad a year later. Looking at Age of Conan, but most games date quickly, and I just didnt think WoW had.
The UI felt dated, and you could see clear improvements in other games, but the character graphics at least were fine. Spell effects were maybe a little on the weak side, but I dont mind that in a game that was having dozens of people all spamming the same mob for the past week or so.
Get out. The graphics look great with all the updated textures and animations etc. This style is timeless.
Yeah see I am comparing it to modern games not comparing it to what WOW used to look like. I know the graphics may have got more crisp over the years and come along way but place it next to FFiv A Realm Reborn and the difference is pretty noticeable.
Lol FFIV, really? That game looks atrocious and still needs to be broken up into instances every 20 steps.
Sure.