This is gonna be a slightly long post, so buckle up, or scroll on traveler, your call.
Having now done Arator's story line in the expansion here's my review. It's pretty standard "the cause I have always fought for might just not be as pure as I thought" crisis story line, with some severe "Calling the old man out" issues mixed in. (To use Southern parlance). It's not crap, but it's also not the kind of stellar storytelling and epic tale many were apparently hoping for. My biggest concern is we're getting "Yet Another Pillar Male Hero Who Is Having an Identity Crisis Believing In The Concept of Good being Good" (i.e. Anduin 2.0) which is tired. And more of "Every strong leader is going to be a woman, deal with it."
The overarching feel I am getting from the whole story for this expac seems to be the very tired trope of "We have to deconstruct what you consider good to make some assertion that everything is a perspective based shade of gray" nonsense unfortunately. The main villain can be summed up pretty easily with "Tell me the devs have a foot fetish and desperately want a goth dommy mommy without actually saying the devs have a foot fetish and desperately want a goth dommy mommy." If you want extra proof of this and use Waze you can turn on Zal'atath as your navigation voice, and REALLY get slapped in the face with it.
Housing is definitely trying to "expand the reach" of the game demographic. But also it has no relevance to game play. I swear at this point my wife has fully changed her main spec to "interior decorator", here's her house.....
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But at the same time, she's enjoying the game. And when it comes down to it a lot of the bitching I hear about housing can be summed up with "SHHHHHH, let people enjoy what they enjoy, you do you."
With that said, yes, they're pushing more and more monetization, but they're functionally owned by MS now, what exactly do you expect? :
I've got my main to 90, overall feel is underwhelming. And unlike World Within this time I decided to take the time and do all the "read the quest texts" and "stay a while and listen" options. I am really getting the feel this "epic worldsoul saga" will end up being "We had one good idea, but corporate overlords insisted on a fully paid expansion on a timetable so we decided to stretch it out for three cycles." I am currently at the "There's no way I will have the tolerance for this level of trite gameplay story telling to level all my alts" phase in the leveling cycle.
Fury warrior feels OK, but I know the DPS is pretty much in the shitcan for the spec at the moment. I guess when Delve/Mythic/Raiding season opens in a week and a half I'll get a much better feel one way or the other.
Most important progression to end game ready point : Fishing is still pretty stable and what it is. Maxxed fishing in less than 8 hours of "have it up while I sit on zoom meetings for work" time. Nice thing is that the "interact with object" button (I think it's F by default) completely works so you no longer have to target your bobber, so it's even more mindless.
Side Note : If you actually like pet battles, peace be with you friend since the Nintendo patent and subsequent suits have made them essentially remove it moving forward. You now capture pets by just finding a critter in the wild flagged as a pet and clicking on it.
I'm pretty sure WoW is existing solely at this point because it's the one game that for whatever reason the market will allow to be :
- Pay for game
- Pay for game again in full at every expansion
- Pay a monthly subscription to play
- Pay for cash items in a shop to accessorize
And Microsoft/Activision will keep that golden goose alive as long as it can. But with that said, for old farts like me it's that comfortable game we're cozy in and makes a nice timesink/distraction.
